


Divinity

by Cazio



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Angst, Cancer, Dream Sharing, Established Relationship, M/M, Medical Trauma, Pain, Post-TRC, Read at Your Own Risk, SCRYING, Terminal Illnesses, eating disorder related imagery, gore related to cancer treatments, i chose not to use archive warnings for a reason, pynch - Freeform, read the tags yo, this will hurt you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:14:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 66,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22660822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cazio/pseuds/Cazio
Summary: Ronan’s dream lights fell dim and whispered away from the windows as Adam stared at the ceiling. Tension wrenched tighter with each heartbeat, words stuck at his throat that would not leave him but had to. Guilt was persuasive, and Adam had gone long enough hiding this. Perhaps too long.“I have cancer.”The words came out like a breath, and Adam wished they would slip away as one.
Relationships: Richard Gansey III/Blue Sargent, Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Comments: 237
Kudos: 305
Collections: Best Complete Series





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> welcome to what happens when nobody wants to rp happy pynch with me.
> 
> here's some of the songs on my inspo playlist for this fic if anyone wants to get sad: [ here ](https://chubbydino.tumblr.com/post/616850324337115136/divinity-inspo-playlist-i-just-dont-think-law)  
> 

The first thing Ronan noticed when Adam arrived for Christmas was that he’d lost more weight. 

Fuzzy lights and picturesque snowfall made the Barnes look like something out of old holiday hymn booklets, except for the occasional dreamthing that romped in the yard, throwing up a flurry of white in its wake. Adam hadn’t trusted his shitbox to get him to Henrietta without incident, so he was forced to ride with Declan and Matthew from DC. Ronan had offered to fly him, to get him there faster, but Adam Parrish didn’t like to leave the ground, even with Cabeswater no longer running through the ley line and instead churning in Gansey.

When Ronan wrapped his arms around Adam in the drive, he found he was met with more bone than he remembered. Muscle, surely, but it was leaner now. Required, but putting up a fight about being there. He buried his nose into Adam’s neck and Adam leaned into him, and it felt like the weight he’d lost had gathered in his shoulders instead.

“You’re here,” Ronan said. He wasn’t sure why it came out sounding so reassuring, but it did.

He threaded his fingers with Adam’s and led him inside while Mathew caught snowflakes on his tongue. Dream lights flickered in the snowfall and gathered in clumps at the windowsills to create a living string of Christmas lights.

Chainsaw shouted a greeting from her spot on the mantle, but she didn’t fly over. Winter made her apt to stay put—a fact that Ronan found immensely helpful when cleaning or crafting.

“I bought stuff,” Ronan announced, opening the fridge to reveal his treasures. Tubes of cinnamon roll dough, a veggie tray, a bagged rotisserie chicken, a carton of eggnog that would make an appearance as decoration only.

Last Christmas had been colder and more lonely than any he had remembered before. Watching his mom getting ripped apart by a demon had that effect.

He wanted Christmas to be good for Adam, especially this year. This year counted more than any other. They had to make this work: him, Declan, Matthew, Adam. This was going to be their future.

“We can make cookies,” Ronan said. “I bought that stuff too. And cereal.”

“With marshmallows?” Matthew asked, eyes sparkling.

“With marshmallows.”

Declan let out a huff of a sigh, probably wondering what would fit in with his Pretentious 101 diet. Ronan hoped none of it did. It wasn’t like it mattered if Matthew ate marshmallows or not, he probably didn’t even have blood sugar.

“And hard cider?” Adam asked as he looked in the fridge for himself.

“It’s Christmas.”

Adam turned, smiling at him. Matthew lunged for the bottle of sparkling grape juice the second he had the chance.

Ronan pulled Adam to him again, looking him over. He was different, again. Even in his faded maroon pullover and jeans, something about him made Ronan’s heart twist in a way that edged on painful instead of wanting.

“Santa will know where to find you,” Ronan murmured, finger fingers carding through Adam’s light hair. “I wrote him.”

“Thank you,” Adam said, like he wasn’t joking. His eyes were dull, like he was going to fall asleep standing up. Not entirely uncharacteristic of Adam Parrish.

Ronan pulled him to his chest, tucking Adam’s head to his collarbone with his chin.

“I’m going to watch something that isn’t Hallmark,” Declan muttered, heading for the living room.

“Fuck you,” Ronan called after him.

Matthew sucked sparkling grape juice straight from the bottle and tumbled through the doorway after his big brother, excitedly prodding Declan to pick a movie he would like too. An impossibility, since Declan and Matthew’s taste in film was a Venn diagram that only touched at one point: movies Ronan hated.

Adam was still against his chest, and Ronan wondered if he’d succumbed to his exhaustion.

“Declan didn’t give you shit, did he?”

“No,” Adam answered tiredly. “I think I need to sleep.”

“I’ll go with you,” Ronan murmured. His fingertips were prickling with something close to panic.

They walked up the stairs together, into the muffled stillness of an upstairs farmhouse bedroom surrounded by snow.

“Hey,” he said, because he was very good at talking to his boyfriend.

“Mm,” Adam replied, pulling off his sneakers and moving into bed. The sheets were freshly washed and the room freshly cleaned, yet Adam moved gingerly, like he’d been asked to lie down on a bed of gravel instead.

“Parrish, you going to tell me what’s going on?”

Ronan shucked off his boots and moved into bed, sitting beside a crumpled Adam. He reached out, bone white fingers moving over the thick fabric of the pullover.

“I’ve had this cold,” Adam explained. “Makes me ache all over. Got it during finals, haven’t slept. Couldn’t take a bath. M’cold all the time.”

Ronan would dream him medicine, something that would fill a bathtub in the time it took to pour a glass, and the water would always be warm. He slipped into be beside Adam and curled around him.

He’d thought there would be a lot more kissing. He thought there would be more than twenty minutes of visiting. 

Instead, Adam shivered against him and Ronan pulled up the comforter.

“Rest as long as you need. I’ll be here. Declan’s gonna be sick of my face in two days anyway, may as well drag it out a little.”

His joke didn’t seem to land with Adam, who was still and tense against him in the quiet.

Ronan’s lips pressed against Adam’s forehead, feeling for excessive warmth. He felt normal. He felt like Adam. But he could feel the taut muscle, the shivering no matter how close together they were, no matter how much Ronan felt like he was going to start sweating.

Fifteen minutes later, and Adam was still awake.

“Can I take a bath?”

“Stay right here,” Ronan whispered. He slipped out of bed, and he was the one trembling when he turned on the hot water.

In fourth grade, Sam Castle fainted in front of the class. Ronan remembered watching him because he’d stood up to walk over to the substitute teacher. He’d stopped, then fallen over and hit his head against the teacher’s desk on the way down.

He remembered just staring. Everyone stared. Even the teacher just _stared_. Ronan had half expected it all to be a joke, because kids didn’t just faint. He remembered the coldness in his blood. The question.

_Am I supposed to do something?_

He felt it as he plunged his hand into the scalding water.

He felt it as he pulled Adam into his arms and lifted him from bed.

“Ronan,” Adam said through chattering teeth. Ronan watched as Adam’s feet slipped into the water, as his skin turned pink when the rest of him submerged. Still shaking.

“You wanted it fucking hot,” Ronan said, like that was what Adam meant.

Adam’s knuckles were white around his wrist as he laid in the water. Ronan kissed the back of his palm.

No one had done anything. He remembered Sam Castle woke screaming. 

Adam’s eyes closed and a smile began to creep to his lips.

“Warm?” Ronan asked.

“Warm,” Adam said softly.

That was the beginning. Ronan wondered if he’d known then.


	2. Chapter 2

It wasn’t impossible to guess that something was wrong. Adam wasn’t sure when he had first noticed it, but one day he was suddenly faced with his body’s inability to cope with whatever was happening inside him.

Despite having student insurance at Harvard that would pay for any and all doctor’s visits on campus, he had an aversion to medical help that had been ingrained from him since birth. He wasn’t even sure how to go about setting up an appointment, and was too focused on finals to deal with it.

Yet his body faltered.

The oiled, unthinking gears of his internal systems started to stick and hitch. So he responded how he normally did: flooding his body with black tea and copious amounts of espresso. Meals were left uneaten except when his stomach felt hollowed out with need, and when Ronan seemed to sense it and sent an occasional text ( _eat, parrish_ ).

Though Adam had never experienced college before, he knew the slope of a school schedule. Harvard was difficult, but with smart friends and diligence, he was managing to hold his own and maintain a GPA that left him above average against his peers.

Except this time, when he broke free from his last final and the weight of classwork was lifted from him for a glorious six weeks of winter freedom at the Barns, he did not feel any better.

When he drove the shitbox to Declan’s, he had to stop every few hours to nap, unable to keep his eyes open.

“ _You look like shit_ ,” Declan had said, startled by the sight of him. _“Come in and I’ll get you something to eat.”_

He had slept the whole trip to the Barns. Even when Declan tried to wake him for lunch, even when Matthew shrieked loudly at the sight of cows or horses or sheep. His bones ached, and the chill in his body that had started before midterms had developed into something that coiled around his spinal column, locking him into a permanent state of discomfort.

Even Ronan didn’t fix it. The bath soothed his aching body, but the scalding heat couldn’t penetrate the ice that had grown inside him, black and unending.

Adam woke the next morning not remembering having gone to sleep. His hair was still damp. Ronan’s breath warmed the nape of his neck, and when he shifted he noticed that he wasn’t wearing any clothing. Ronan’s arm was protective around his middle, and Adam slowly began to realize he must have fallen asleep in the bathtub.

But he felt better. Rest soothed what bathwater couldn’t, and Adam wasn’t eager for more. For the first time since Halloween, he felt like he had slept enough. He looked down at Ronan’s arm and noticed a small bottle in his palm.

“You’re awake,” Adam murmured.

“Yeah,” Ronan said immediately.

Ronan’s fingers twitched around the bottle and he moved it up so Adam could take it.

Round pills stacked like orbs of chlorophyll behind the glass, and Adam felt more awake just looking at them.

“How many should I take?” he asked.

“One.” Ronan shifted to an elbow. Adam sat up, carefully opening the bottle and pouring out a single pill. It was cool against his lips. Then burst in his mouth, causing him to jump. Something minty-sweet coated his tongue, and when he swallowed he nearly choked with the amount of liquid that was suddenly in his mouth.

“Jesus,” he coughed into his arm.

“Sorry,” Ronan said. “I can’t control everything.”

Adam didn’t realize he’d just willingly taken a drug until he started to feel amazing. Well rested became perfectly rested, and he could feel his cheeks color, his skin soften, and his muscles relax.

“How’s it feel?” Ronan asked, and Adam could tell by the way he was staring that he was nervous.

“I’m not so sure I should have just blindly swallowed a dream pill, but I feel great.” Adam looked over to him, finally able to focus on his boyfriend and all that had changed in the months since he’d last seen him. 

Ronan had shoulders now, the line of them making him look even more imposing. His chest had broadened too, and Adam knew the muscle there was only the beginning of what Ronan Lynch would become. If he had been pretty before, he was staggering now. His cheekbones remained sharp, his jaw sharper, his eyes still as dangerous, though they were soft now. They were always soft for him.

“Take a fucking picture,” Ronan muttered, cheeks dusting pink.

Adam laughed before leaning over to kiss him.

Kissing Ronan still brought him a thrill, especially when Ronan always kissed back so earnestly. Time apart was hard, and these moments where their lips reacquainted were always a little difficult at first. They knocked teeth just slightly, but Adam’s laugh was cut short as Ronan tugged him on top of him.

Ronan tasted like sleep and dreaming. Adam’s fingers spread over his chest, unable to stop himself from smiling. The past semester he’d daydreamed of moments just like this one, quiet mornings, warm comforters, the security of home, and the soft sounds of kissing.

Ronan’s hand moved over his hip, curling his fingers just slightly to press into his flesh. Adam’s lips moved to Ronan’s neck, kissing at the claws of ink that stuck from his collar, always searching for a different taste there, as though it wasn’t part of Ronan at all, but something more.

Ronan’s fingers pressed insistently, and Adam decided to wait no longer.

Declan made a point of not looking up when they wandered downstairs into the kitchen. He was cracking eggs into a mixing bowl, a newspaper unfolded beside it on the counter.

“Feeling better?” Declan asked over the crack of another eggshell.

Adam looked to Ronan, smiling. Ronan thumbed at his waistline, his face unreadable.

“Much,” Adam finally said. “Making eggs?”

“Quiche,” Declan replied.

“Tis the season,” Ronan said with a wry grin.

“We’re not eating cinnamon rolls for the entire break.”

Adam rested his cheek against Ronan’s shoulder, his arm still carelessly looped around Ronan’s middle. He liked Declan just fine, even if his first encounters with him had been less than pleasant where Ronan was concerned. The Lynch brothers had matured. At least, Ronan had. Declan seemed like he’d been an adult since his life had begun. Adam could understand that, and he hated that it could happen to someone with loving parents and siblings as easily as it could happen to an unwanted only child. As he’d spent more time with Declan, Adam had developed a soft spot for him, even if he could be an absolute dickwad.

He didn’t need to ask where Matthew was. Matthew didn’t wake up until at least noon when he wasn’t required to.

“Do you need help?” Adam asked. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Ronan’s eyes narrowing at his brother.

Declan finally looked up. “If you don’t mind. I could use some help chopping vegetables.”

He said it like chopping vegetables like others would say “ _setting up a meeting_ ,” or “ _coordinating_ _asset allocation_.”

“We’ve got more important shit to do,” Ronan growled.

“No we don’t. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.” Adam gave Ronan a little squeeze. “Want to help me?”

Ronan scowled for a long moment, then broke from Adam to get to the fridge.

“I picked up some spinach and bell peppers,” Declan said as he started whisking the eggs. “Again, can’t survive on cinnamon rolls.”

Ronan plucked the bag of spinach out of the drawer and tossed it at Adam.

Once knives and cutting boards were in place, Adam watched with fascination as Ronan expertly cut the seedy middle of the pepper in a matter of strokes. It was as if his hands were made for the task, his fingers twitched and curled and the pepper seemed to fall apart all on its own. Each swath of the knife was as clean as it was precise, and it gleamed in such a way that Adam could almost hear its joy at being wielded by a master.

Ronan’s hands paused. “What?”

Adam blinked. “I didn’t know you became a chef.”

A smirk turned at Ronan’s lips. “Learn something new every day.”

Adam cut the stems from the bundle of baby spinach and his knife was as bumbling and unruly as the hands that held it. His spinach pieces were large and uneven, and he spent far too long on individual leaves, trying to cut them just right.

He felt the moment Ronan’s eyes were on him and frowned.

“I can do it,” Adam said.

It wasn’t a moment later that Ronan’s arms were around him, his chin settled neatly in the join of Adam’s neck and shoulder. His hands moved over Adam’s, gently realigning his fingers to the blade. He squeezed Adam’s left hand, guiding him to ball up the pathetically cut spinach.

“Won’t it bruise?” Adam asked.

“You ever seen bruised spinach, Parrish?” Ronan teased.

He hadn’t. Adam bunched the spinach in his hands, and Ronan guided the knife to chop at the end of the pile, carefully adjusting to avoid cutting open any fingers. Adam relaxed, not resisting as Ronan showed his hands what to do.

The spinach recovered from its initial ugliness, becoming only slightly lopsided chopped pieces.

“Told you I could do it,” Adam said with a grin. Ronan kissed his jaw and then drew back.

Declan took their vegetables and shooed them off once Ronan started asking him about baking temperature and how he planned on perfecting egg fluffiness.

Adam took the time to say hello to Opal, who tucked her face against his leg, her little arms wrapped around his knees in a tight hug.

“I missed you too,” he said, gently carding his fingers through her hair until he was given enough room to kneel down for a proper hug. Though Opal had quite a few chlidish tendencies, she was hardly a child, even if Adam always thought of her as one. She was from a different world, and adjusting to theirs wasn’t easy for her.

She skittered away down the hall and returned a moment later with a piece of construction paper covered in paint, marker, and what looked like melted wax.

“For me?” Adam said, taking the artwork and looking it over.

She nodded, grinning happily. Adam couldn’t remember seeing her the night before, but he felt like he must have. He saw no reason that she would stay away when she had clearly waited so long to see him.

“She’s been saving it,” Ronan informed him, Chainsaw on his shoulder.

Something bubbled up in Adam’s throat, and his smile quivered for just a moment.

“Thank you,” he said softly, thumbing carefully over the raised wax.

Opal met his eyes, and for a moment her smile fell away, her dark eyes settling into an uneasy space in her irises.

She reached up—as if possessed—and touched his cheek. Adam stared back at her, his heart starting to beat wildly in his chest, though he wasn’t certain why. Some screen was being lifted, some thin veil between him and something beyond. He could feel Opal tugging at it with all her might, though she wasn’t moving at all.

“No!” she suddenly screamed, so loudly that Chainsaw croaked in surprise, bursting up from her perch in momentary fear as Adam fell back.

Tears sprang to Opal’s eyes and she ran from him, shoving out the door and out into the snow.

“Opal?” Adam got to his feet, placing his gift on the nearest table. He looked at Ronan, who looked back just as concerned.

Chainsaw slipped through the door before it shut completely, and Adam pushed out after her. Opal had flung herself into the snow, wracked with sobs and screaming.

“Jesus,” Ronan whispered just behind him, slipping past to run to her.

Snow danced from the sky, swirling around them as Adam stared. His heart was still bouncing around his ribcage, his blood vessels pumped full of adrenaline. She had seen something. Or felt something.

Snowflakes melted against his freckles, the icy burn of his bare feet the only reminder that he was indeed a human living on this planet with other godforsaken humans.

He watched Ronan crouch in the snow, watched the way his lips moved in quiet speech, the way his fingers gently touched Opal’s sweater, then curled tight into the fabric when she buried herself in his chest.

Ronan looked up at him, and Adam saw fear in his eyes. At the same time, Adam noticed his mouth still tasted slightly minty sweet.

_What did she see?_


	3. Chapter 3

Ronan dreamed that night. When he woke in his forest, it had been waiting for him. The air hung thick and heavy, the leaves upturned and flashing their light underbellies. His breathing instinctively quieted to hear the thunder that was closing in on them. The clouds beyond the canopy darkened as Ronan waded through the undergrowth.

_You saw_.

He paused for only a moment before continuing forward.

_You saw._

Ronan closed his eyes, taking a stilling breath. It was hard to tell what was speaking to him when he wasn’t entirely focused, and right now he couldn’t get the image of Adam in the living room out of his head. Adam Parrish existed to most of the world as a collection of pensive looks, but when Ronan caught them they made his stomach knot.

Adam had been sitting on the armchair away from him, swallowed up in a hoodie, knees tucked to his chest. His eyes had been far beyond the living room where Ronan and Matthew played slapjack and Declan snarled at him whenever he slapped Matthew’s hand too hard (which was every time, apparently).

“Parrish, what’s going on?” Ronan had asked later as they dressed for bed.

“Opal,” had been his only response.

Of course. Of course it was Opal.

Now he stood in a forest that only grew more looming around him, the air crackling and the shadows darkening.

“What did I see?” he asked, touching his hand to the smooth bark of a sycamore.

Wind rustled the leaves, but there was no response. Typical. Fucking forest only responded when he didn’t want it to.

“Please.”

Or when he begged.

_Open your eyes._

“They’re open,” he whispered, and he began to tremble.

He pushed deeper into the forest, until he saw a clearing. He could work with that.

Long grass licked at his knees as he moved into the clearing, his shoes no longer on his feet and his toes squicking into cool mud. A whisper of thunder stretched above him and in his nose he smelled the promise of rain. His head turned skyward and his palms turned up. Like the pictures of Moses from his early days of CCD, where Moses always looked stricken, begging for God to appear as a burning bush.

_Shit._

_No fire no fire no fire._

Ronan opened his eyes, breathing a sigh of relief when no warm blaze was looking back at him.

Instead, the grass had turned to long IV tubes swaying in the wind. Ronan caught one between his fingers and noticed a yellow plastic piece attached, one that had letters stamped on it.

_PATIENT: A. LYNCH_

Ronan blinked.

_PATIENT: A. PARRISH_

He blinked again.

_PATIENT: A. PARRISH_

He turned and was faced with his mother’s hospital bed, the one they had packed away and put into the storage shed. He couldn’t see who was in it, but a slender white hand was limp over the edge of the mattress, fingers curled just so, with a ballerina’s grace.

The tubes began to clack as colored plastic tabs appeared on all of them.

_PATIENT: A. PARRISH_

_PATIENT: A. PARRISH_

_PATIENT: A. PARRISH_

“He’s fine,” Ronan hissed.

He stomped through the plastic tube field toward the bed.

“He’s healthy.”

It wasn’t Adam in the bed. The hand was too thin, the skin too pale. Adam’s hand didn’t look like that.

_Are you looking with your eyes open?_

Ronan rounded the bed angrily.

A…thing lay in it. A human being, but only partly one. He followed the line of the hand up to an equally thin forearm, but a male forearm. Right? Maybe it wasn’t. Freckles dotted the skin, like paint splatter on a bleach-white canvas.

“Don’t look.”

Ronan snapped his head around.

Noah stood in the clearing (grass again), his eyes ink-black. He was older now, as old as Ronan. His hair was neatly styled, and Ronan recognized it from a men’s magazine he’d almost bought to make Declan think he was reading about sex tips.

“Don’t look,” Noah said again as Ronan had the overwhelming urge to do just that.

“Noah,” he said. “Where—is it really you?”

It had been so long since he’d seen Noah, and it made his throat tighten to see him like this. Like them, like he was growing, but somewhere else.

“I never meant to act like shit to you, you know,” Ronan found himself saying, and the chasm in his chest _gaped_. “I always—I never meant—”

Noah was suddenly right in front of him, smiling in a wide, charming grin. His eyes were still dark, but now just dark grey—a raven’s eyes.

“I know,” Noah said. “Complicated time, right?”

Ronan grabbed his arm, jolting at the solidness of it.

“I could bring you back,” he blurted out.

Noah’s hand folded over his, warm now, not cold and dead. “No, Lynch.”

Tears brimmed hot in his eyes, fuzzing his vision, fuzzing Noah. “Please.”

The trees whispered, grieving. Branches sagged, the grass bowed.

“You’ll dream again,” Noah said cheerfully.

Ronan’s body filled with a sense of despair at the way Noah said it. Like dreaming would be all he had when ‘ _again_ ’ came around. His hand dropped from Noah’s arm.

“Can I walk you out?” Noah asked politely.

“I—” Ronan turned his head—

Noah caught him by the collar and threw him to the grass.

“Hey! What the fuck—”

“Don’t. Look.” Noah’s eyes were black again, and this time they were smoking blackness too, obscuring the hospital bed, obscuring what he had come to look at.

“I’m waking up,” Ronan snarled, but he was crying now, swept with the despair again. Noah frowned, then nodded.

“Okay.”

Ronan woke with a massive start, though of course his body didn’t move. Fear gripped him so tightly he felt himself physically drowning in it, and even as he looked down at his sleeping body he saw complete tension in it. Adam was…awake? Yes, he was awake, staring at the light coming in through the window.

Adam.

_Are you looking with your eyes open, Ronan?_

The world crashed.

“Jesus Christ!” Ronan gasped, because he hadn’t expected so much hurting.

Adam spun around in bed, wide-eyed. He scrambled in the comforter for a few moments, looking around wildly, likely searching for whatever Ronan had brought with him. But there was only thread in Ronan’s hands, a torn piece of clothing.

“Ronan,” Adam said, framing his face in his hands. “Are you okay? Ronan!?”

Ronan looked up at him, tears burning hot lines down his cheeks. Adam looked just as terrified as Ronan felt, and for a moment he was unable to say anything, locked in himself though he had control of his body.

“It was Noah,” Ronan choked out. Tears sprang fresh, so fiercely that he couldn’t hope to hold them down. He hadn’t seen Noah in years. Admittedly, he hadn’t thought of Noah in some time. It was hard to remember things when Noah hadn’t really been there at all, when he had appeared and vanished without any reason. But Noah had been there.

“Noah?” Adam repeated, and his voice sounded broken too. “What happened? Was something wrong?”

Ronan just cried. Pitifully, horribly. Adam stopped asking questions and pulled him in close until Ronan’s face was pressed into Adam’s stomach and the comforter cocooned them both. Adam’s fingers gently scratched his shaved head, and Ronan tried not to think about Noah’s face. What could have been. What _was_ , wherever Noah had come from.

“He was our age,” Ronan rasped some time later. “He looked like us. He was older.”

Adam just stroked his head.

There was a knock at the door, then Ronan heard it open. Adam shifted around him.

“What’s going on?” Declan’s voice asked.

“Nightmare,” Adam replied.

_Nightmare._

It hadn’t been a nightmare. It was _Noah_.

“Did he bring anything back?”

“Nothing dangerous,” Adam replied evenly, his fingers still moving back and forth over Ronan’s skull.

There was a pause and for a moment Ronan thought Declan had left until he spoke again:

“I’ll make cinnamon rolls.”

The door closed and Adam crowded him again, his fingers now trailing down the nape of his neck.

“My mom was there too,” Ronan said quietly. “I think. Her hospital bed was there, and it looked like her hand. But every time I tried to look past her arm I couldn’t. Noah wouldn’t let me—he even grabbed me and threw me down so I wouldn’t look.”

“Do you think it was really Noah or a dream versio—”

“Real,” Ronan said.

Adam kissed his head. Ronan tried to find comfort in it but he couldn’t stop thinking about the tubes with Adam’s name on them.

He lifted up the mangled piece of Noah’s sweater, but recalled now that Noah hadn’t been wearing a sweater. The wool was stringy and brittle, falling away in his hands. He lifted it to his nose and it smelled like odd cologne and aftershave and not like Noah at all. Or maybe it just smelled like Noah _now_.

“Is that his?” Adam asked.

Ronan lifted the cloth higher and Adam reluctantly sniffed it.

“It’s his.”

Ronan blinked. “How'd you know?”

“He gave me aftershave that smelled like that once. I figured it was just because he had nothing to shave, but I mean, of course he couldn’t use it. But that’s the smell.”

To think Ronan had lived with Noah for years and never smelled it. Or never remembered it. He didn’t know which was worse.

“He was dead, Ronan,” Adam said, as if reading his thoughts. “It isn’t easy to remember specific things about someone who was never actually there.”

He wanted to argue that he was rarely there either, yet everyone still remembered him. He didn’t like to think about his room at Monmouth anymore, it reminded him of something boiling and ugly. Just remembering it felt like life was being sucked out of him.

The warm scent of cooking cinnamon rolls wafted up through the vents, enveloping them both. Adam’s stomach growled a moment later. Ronan tried to crack a smile.

“Hungry, Parrish?”

“Shut up.”

Ronan snaked his arms around his boyfriend and tugged him in for a long squeeze.

“Tamquam—” Adam said, lips moving in Ronan’s head fuzz.

“—alter idem.”

It was time for cinnamon rolls. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if for some reason you haven't read the summary or tags, you should do that. also as a disclaimer: i don't know what's happening at the end of this yet. major character death is a possibility, but i don't know. i've chosen not to use archive warnings for this reason. as stated in the tags _read at your own risk._

The cold in Adam’s bones returned the night before he left for Harvard. He still had five green pills in his jar, but over the past two weeks they hadn’t affected him as greatly as they had the first day. He wondered if his body was building immunity to them, and didn’t entertain the alternative, though it slipped into his mind sometimes. _Maybe you’re just getting sicker_ , it whispered.

He kissed Ronan more. He held his hand longer, he wrapped up in his jackets and hoodies and wore his t-shirts and sweatpants. If Ronan noticed, he didn’t say anything about it. He just returned his kisses, didn’t let go, and told him he looked “sexy as fuck” any chance he got.

When Adam woke up that night, his throat hurt. Not like a sore throat--it wasn’t a dry pain. It throbbed, it held, it _hurt_. When he sat up in bed, he realized it wasn’t pain in his throat at all, but in his back, spreading from the nape of his neck down between his shoulder blades, a squeezing.

He coughed, thinking that might loosen it, but instead the pain clutched tight enough that he let out a small ‘ _oof_ ’ of surprise. Adam swallowed hard, trying not to panic. _This is mostly in your head,_ he told himself. _You’re making it worse by thinking about it._

He bit down on his lower lip and took a deep breath to calm himself. The pain heightened again. He told himself his throat wasn’t closing, because it wasn’t. It wasn’t.

Adam slipped out of bed, reaching over his head to try to stretch out whatever was tightening (or not tightening). Ronan’s sweatshirt sleeves billowed at his elbows.

_Something’s wrong._

In his heart, he knew it was true. That is wasn’t just a cold or a stress-induced bout of fatigue.

He couldn’t think about it. The pain ebbed away after a long moment of stretching.

Adam crawled back into bed, working his arm underneath Ronan’s, curling the other one between them as he rested his head against Ronan’s chest.

“Parrish,” Ronan murmured in his sleep, his arms tightening around him.

“I love you,” Adam whispered.

He was afraid.

In the morning, he made out with Ronan in the driveway, wearing the brand new winter coat Ronan had bought him for Christmas. Declan honked impatiently and Ronan flipped him off with one hand, his other hand holding Adam right in place so he couldn’t feel obligated to break the kiss. Opal pouted on the porch, tears in her eyes because she knew Adam was leaving for some time. Chainsaw watched anxiously, concerned that maybe Ronan was actually eating Adam this time, their faces were so mashed against each other.

When they finally broke apart, Adam could scarcely breathe, but he was grinning. He framed Ronan’s face in his hands.

“I love you,” he said. “I’ll be back for spring break, and we can go to the mountains or something. A trip.”

“A trip,” Ronan replied, thumbing at his cheek. “Yeah. In the meantime you better take care of yourself, okay? Soon as you start feeling tired, you take one of those pills. I can mail you more or something.”

Ronan had given him a new bottle, and this time the pills were fluorescent purple like the inside of a glowstick.

“I will,” he promised.

“And don’t work too hard.”

“I won’t.”

“And don’t try to be a fucking Harvard hero.”

“I’ll try not to.”

“And get sleep. And make sure you eat enough.”

“I will.”

Ronan’s eyes moved to his lips, then they kissed, again.

Declan honked, again.

“I can come up there anytime you want,” Ronan said when they broke apart. “You just tell me.”

Adam gave him a peck. “I’m telling you to take care of yourself. I’ll be home before you know it. I love you.”

Ronan hugged him then, and Adam knew that meant it was really goodbye. He squeezed hard, tucking his face into Ronan’s neck.

“I’ll see you really soon,” Adam murmured.

Ronan didn’t respond. When he pulled away, his eyes were wet.

“Alright, go on. Tell Declan he’s a piece of shit.”

Adam’s eyes were wet too. He felt like he was leaving more than just Ronan, like a part of himself was tearing away too. “See you soon.”

“Yeah,” Ronan croaked.

Adam turned and opened the car door.

“Bye, Ronan!” Matthew called, sticking his head out the passenger window.

Ronan ruffled Matthew’s golden curls but said nothing.

Adam buckled his seatbelt in the backseat and no one asked him any questions. Declan’s eyes lingered on him for a moment in the rearview, but Adam pretended not to notice. He watched Chainsaw rush to Ronan’s shoulder and nuzzle his head, and Opal ran to him crying before he scooped her up and headed inside without looking back.

* * *

On Valentine’s Day, Adam got a package delivered to his dorm. Inside it was a piece of pink construction paper cut in a heart shape, and scribbled letters. A handprint made with paint, and a clunky OPAL written with sharpie. There was also a raven feather with red thread wrapped around the end and held with glue, with a tiny construction paper heard dangling on the end. At the bottom of the box, there was a red leather bracelet that smelled like Ronan. Also a note.

 _Happy Capitalism-Fueled Love Holiday_ , it read. _Miss you like hell._

Adam had sent the cheesiest card he’d been able to find at the corner store and an antique pin he’d found at the thrift shop, so garish that he knew Ronan would immediately want it. He sent Opal a colorful seashell brooch, and Chainsaw an exceedingly ugly earring that had no partner—all from the same thrift shop.

Adam was quickly learning that his experience with winter thus far in his life had not adequately prepared him for the east coast. The cold was brutal in Cambridge, and any exposed skin was clawed at by wind and icy snow whenever he went outside. His lungs hurt, his face hurt, his fingers felt like they were freezing off even with the gloves Declan had gotten him for Christmas (evidently the Lynch brothers had not been confident in his winter wardrobe, and rightly so).

He texted Ronan: _got your box._

A reply came immediately.

_got your pin. fucking awesome._

Adam warmed, grinning as he headed up the stairs to his dorm room. He coughed into his sleeve, hissing at the pain in his chest as he did so. He’d been coughing so much he was pretty sure he’d sprained a rib. Everyone in the dorm was in some stage of the flu, but everyone pretended they weren’t, Adam included.

Ronan sent a photo of Opal with the brooch pinned to her sweater, grinning around a stick in her mouth. Then a video of Chainsaw violently whipping the earring around to that the pieces clacked against each other.

Adam replied with a smiley face as he swiped his ID to get into his room.

When he entered, his roommate, Fletcher, turned to him immediately. Adam liked Fletcher, and Fletcher put up with a lot of shit. Namely the smashed crabs incident. He was seldom concerned about anything in their room, but when Adam looked up at him, he saw _only_ concern.

“If you don’t go to Student Health Services, I’m going to call emergency services,” Fletcher said.

Fletcher never joked. Adam knew he hadn’t started now.

Adam placed the box of presents on his bed and shed his backpack onto the comforter. He pulled the red leather bracelet from the box and brought it over to Fletcher.

“Can you tie this around my wrist?” Adam asked, ignoring the statement.

Fletcher was far too polite to say no, so he took the bracelet and started tying.

“I’m serious.”

“I know you are,” Adam said, fighting down the building burn of another cough.

“Tonight,” Fletcher said, tying the bracelet snug in a deft movement.

Sailing. Right. Fletcher sailed. He was a knot expert.

“Can’t tonight, I have a group meeting for American Political History.”

“Not anymore,” Fletcher said. “Anu’s in that group with you, I told her you weren’t coming.”

Adam’s eyes narrowed. “Well, I’m—”

“There were about fifty bloody tissues in the trash can,” Fletcher snapped. Adam blinked. He’d never heard him get angry. 

“I got a nosebleed,” Adam lied.

“Just because I have my music loud doesn’t mean I can’t hear you over my headphones, Adam,” Fletcher said. “I can. And I’ve been listening to it all month. Then today I decided to be a good roommate and that’s what I found. You’re going to heath services. I’m taking you—don’t even take off your coat.”

Fletcher stood, and Adam had to step back to avoid crashing into him.

“It was a nosebleed,” Adam said again.

“Nosebleeds don’t have a spray pattern,” Fletcher cut, shrugging on his coat. He was already wearing his boots and fishing his gloves from his pocket.

Adam knew he had no choice, so he followed Fletcher from the room in silence. His phone buzzed with two texts from Ronan, but he didn’t look at them. He balled his hands to fists in his pockets, digging into the base of his palm with his nails.

“You’ll be okay, Parrish,” Fletcher said once they were on the campus bus. Adam still hadn’t spoken.

They got off the bus by the Old Yard, and Fletcher took a moment to orient himself before heading away from the green. Adam followed, hands shaking. He coughed into his arm again, and the cold air raked the back of his throat.

Fletcher strode into the Smith Campus Center like he owned it. He led Adam up a staircase and directly to a portion of the building labeled Urgent Care. He turned to make sure Adam was following. He was.

They entered the office, and a kind-looking woman in scrubs sat behind the desk. She grinned at them in a way a receptionist at Harvard might, and greeted Fletcher with a melodic hello.

Adam hung back as Fletcher leaned against the desk, casually confident in a way that reminded him all too much of Gansey.

He chanced a look at his phone.

_miss you._

_stay warm, call me when you’re done with your group study shit._

Adam bit the inside of his cheek.

“Mr. Parrish?” the receptionist asked.

He stepped forward. Fletcher put a hand on his back and patted firmly to make sure he felt it through the thick goose down of his coat.

The receptionist handed him a clipboard. “If you could fill this out, I’ll take your ID and start getting you processed.”

Fletcher sat with him on the stiff vinyl-cushioned bench of the waiting room as Adam filled out his medical information (even though he had already filled it out online when he signed up for insurance in the first place).

“I had bronchitis once,” Fletcher said thoughtfully, as though it happened in a past life. “It sucked. I was laid up for weeks. Coughing up blood and all that, like you. But they can treat it pretty fast now, probably faster than when I had it. You’ll be fine.”

A while later, Adam handed in the paperwork and got his ID back. About ten minutes after that, a nurse stepped out from a door and called his name.

“Do you want me to go with you?” Fletcher asked.

Adam shook his head. “That’s okay.”

“I’ll wait out here,” Fletcher said cheerfully before Adam could tell him to go back to the dorm. “If you take longer than thirty, I’ll go grab some food and bring it back.”

Adam was grateful, but he wasn’t sure how to say it. Fletcher smiled like he knew and waved goodbye to him as he followed the nurse to the exam room.

She started with questions and Adam decided to be honest, for Fletcher and for Ronan. The nurse wrote things on her clipboard and asked more questions.

At first she seemed bored, then she wasn’t.

She took a swab from the back of his throat that made him gag. The cotton was rusty when the nurse pulled it back out of his mouth and put it in a bag.

Adam was afraid.

The nurse left after her questions, and he didn’t wait very long before a doctor came in with more questions. She looked down his throat, listened to his heart, listened to him breathe. Felt for painful spots on his back.

“Does this hurt?” she asked, pressing his spine.

“No,” Adam said. “It doesn’t hurt with pressure. It just hurts sometimes all up my back.”

“How often?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Consistently, but not all the time.”

The doctor moved his shirt back down his back and removed her gloves. She sat in her rolling chair and looked up at him where he sat on the examination table.

“Did either of your parents smoke?” she asked.

Adam actually had to think about it. “Uh, yes,” he said. “My dad did.”

Of course she knew that. The evidence was right there on his shoulder blade from when he was six.

“Did your dad smoke in the house?” she asked.

“Um, sometimes,” he replied _. When he was drunk._ “Usually just outside, though. My mom didn’t like the way it smelled.”

“Do you smoke?”

“No.”

“Have you ever?”

“No.”

He’d already told them that on the paperwork.

The doctor nodded. “Adam, I’d like to get you in for an x-ray. Can we do that?”

He sat back. “Right now?”

“I’d like to do it right now, yes.”

“My roommate is waiting for me,” he said.

She smiled warmly at him. “It won’t take long. I just need to rule out a few things, and an x-ray will help me do that pretty quickly. Have you ever had an x-ray?”

Adam shook his head.

She stood up. “Come with me. We’ll weigh you on the way. You can bring your coat, I’ll have you out of here in no time.”

Adam tried so hard not to shake, but his legs wobbled so obviously that he almost sat back down. Every step he took down the hall felt like he was being led deeper and deeper into the caves they’d traveled as teenagers, except the blatant reality of the current situation made it even more frightening.

A different medical person greeted him at a different room. Adam assumed he was a nurse, but he didn’t actually know. The maybe-nurse and the doctor spoke feverishly, and Adam picked at the bracelet on his arm.

He remembered being so angry when Gansey forced him to go to the hospital after he’d lost his hearing. Even when the doctors told him he might never get it back, he hadn’t been afraid. He’d been alone then too, but this time was more terrifying than he could ever admit. He could think of nothing that would make it easier.

After he was weighed on a scale in the hallway, his bracelet was removed, along with his watch, and Adam changed into a hospital gown for the second time in his life. The maybe-nurse brought him to a room where the door was covered in bright yellow warnings about radiation and led Adam inside.

He was instructed to put his hands on his hips, to hunch his shoulders forward. A sticker was placed on his right shoulder, and he felt like his body was being marked in case it became so disfigured they would have a way to identify his remains.

_It’s just an x-ray._

Just a blast of radiation.

A lead cover was wrapped around his waist to protect at least some of his internal organs. He took a deep breath in, lowered his shoulders, deep breath out. Another deep breath in and there was a long beep.

Adam trembled. He trembled as he collected his clothes, trembled as he changed in a bathroom full of stainless steel, trembled as he pulled out his phone and sat on the closed toilet lid to call Ronan. The lights buzzed dimly above him.

The phone only rang once.

“Hey.”

Adam couldn’t speak. He bit into the side of his palm as tears leaked down his cheeks in two hot rivers.

“Parrish?”

_Something’s wrong._

“Adam?”

“Hey,” Adam said, but it came out like a sob.

“You’re freaking me the fuck out—what’s wrong? Aren’t you supposed to be at class or the study thing or whatever?” Ronan asked.

Adam coughed into his sleeve. The back of his throat still felt dry from where they’d swabbed him, and he couldn’t get the look of surprise on the maybe-nurse’s face out of his mind when he’d stood on the scale.

“It’s fine,” Adam said. “Group got cancelled, Anu got sick. I’m going out to dinner with Fletcher.”

“Who the fuck is Fletcher?” Ronan asked.

“My roommate, Ronan,” Adam replied easily.

“Why does your voice sound like that?”

Ronan never asked this many questions unless he was freaking out.

“Everyone has a cold here,” Adam said. “I’ve been coughing all day. Throat’s all scratchy.”

It was easier to be calm when he could focus on calming Ronan.

“You need to take cold medicine. Have you been taking the pills?”

“Yeah,” Adam half-lied. He’d started double, then triple dosing to feel better. He’d been out of pills for weeks.

“Then take some fucking cold medicine or go to the doctor of some shit, you sound like you’re crying. Can’t cry on Valentine’s unless it’s about something mushy.”

Tears were still leaking down Adam’s face as he leaned back against the toilet tank, knees tucked to his chest. He stared at the ceiling and wondered if Ronan’s God was looking back.

“Speaking of mushy, thanks again for the box.”

He brought the leather bracelet to his nose and closed his eyes. It smelled like Ronan, mixed with the nauseating sterile smell of a clinical bathroom.

“Thanks for the pin. I’m gonna pin it to the sunshade in the BMW.”

“Think of me and slow down a little,” Adam whispered.

“You alright, Parrish?” Ronan asked, his voice softer now.

“I’m okay,” he murmured. “I just wanted to call. And just…I love you, and happy Valentine’s.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line.

“If you start dating Fletcher I’m going to fucking lose it.”

Adam laughed outright, and that sent him straight into a burst of coughing. He held the phone up over his head to avoid the worst of the noise. Each spasm clawed deep into his throat, and when he finally got ahold of himself he was panting and his knees were spotted with rusty flecks.

“Sorry,” Adam rasped.

“Parrish, you need to go to a doctor,” Ronan said, his voice taut.

“I have an appointment,” he said. “Fletcher’s going to make sure I go.”

“Okay.”

“He said it’s probably bronchitis. Sounds worse than it is,” Adam said as he wiped rust-colored discharge from his pants with some toilet paper.

“When’s the appointment?”

“Tomorrow.”

He hated lying. He hated it.

“Okay,” Ronan said. “Text me before and after.”

“I will,” he promised, wiping his eyes with fresh toilet paper. “Fletcher’s ready to go.”

“Right, of course, gotta be on Fletcher’s schedule,” Ronan said dryly.

Adam smiled. His throat burned. “I’ll talked to you soon. _Tamquam_.”

“Yeah, yeah. _Alter idem_ ,” Ronan said.

“Stop worrying,” Adam added. “I feel fine other than the cough.” _And the blood, and the aching, the fatigue, and the pain._

“Shut up. Call me tomorrow.”

Ronan hung up on him.

Adam emerged from the bathroom and went to reception, where the receptionist told him that he would get a call in a week or so with the findings. His doctor advised some over-the-counter medications for severe cough and flu in the meantime.

Fletcher stood to greet him and held out a takeout bag. “I only ate part of mine so we can eat together.”

“Can we go somewhere to get cough medicine?” Adam rasped.

Fletcher’s brow furrowed. “Sure. Do you want to do that first?”

Adam peered into the bag to see a paper bowl of chicken noodle soup. He smiled. Ronan would be pleased, and pissed.

“Eat first,” he said.

 _Fletcher bought me soup,_ Adam texted when they sat down at a table in the campus center.

 _fuck off fletcher,_ Ronan replied a few seconds later. Then: _eat up. feel better._

The soup helped tremendously. Fletcher told him a story about when he’d gone to a silent disco in Germany, and Adam listened. Weary students stumbled around the campus center as the sun sank in the sky, and Adam felt almost normal by the time they headed to the corner store and bought Tylenol Cold + Flu, Nyquil, and Dayquil.

“Thanks for making me go,” Adam said when they were on the bus again.

Fletcher looked up from texting and smiled. “Anytime. Couldn’t stand listening to you cough like that anymore.”

“My boyfriend says thanks too,” Adam said.

“No problem, Ronan,” Fletcher chuckled.

So he remembered. Adam realized maybe he’d been the one who was a less-than-great roommate.

When they arrived back at their room, Adam changed into one of Ronan’s sweatshirts and crawled into bed. Fletcher took up his usual place at his desk and put his headphones on to listen to classical Spanish guitar _(“Francisco Tárrega is practically his own genre,_ _Adam”_ ).

Adam turned to face the wall and thought about calling Ronan again, just to hear his voice. He wanted to tell Ronan everything, but he knew that until he had answers, that wouldn’t help anyone. Ronan was all the way in Henrietta and wasn’t allowed on campus. Adam wouldn’t put him through that stress over nothing. If it became something, then he would tell him. 

He breathed in the scent of Ronan from the bracelet instead, and found it soothed him toward sleep faster and easier than any amount of Nyquil could have—though his dosage probably didn’t hurt. His chest rattled against his ribcage as he started breathing deeper, and before he drifted to sleep he felt the urge to cough, but didn’t.


	5. Chapter 5

Spring break was blessedly close. Adam could smell it on the breeze as February came to an end. Midterms were crushing, but one look out the window and Adam could only think of the Barns, and how soon the buds would come to the trees and when he would need to tell Ronan to start wearing sunscreen so he wouldn’t have tomato shoulders.

With the encouragement of his Macroeconomics professor, Adam had taken on a broader scope to the term being ‘successful’ in college. The Crying Club had group nights out where they piled into each other’s dorm rooms and watched movies or found Harvard events that weren’t completely lame. Winter made it a bit more difficult to entertain themselves, but Adam had to admit it made his study time more effective when he interspersed it with normal things.

Sometimes he forgot about his doctor’s visit. Sometimes he laughed at jokes and didn’t feel pain in his chest and didn’t think about the x-ray. Sometimes he called Ronan and didn’t remember he was hiding something from him until he hung up.

He got a B+ on his first exam in Statistics, without the curve. By Harvard standards, he was doing great. Of course Adam pushed himself to work harder, to continue the streak, but something deeper in him was fraying. It was the same thing that that told him his cold medicine wasn’t fixing the problem.

Adam was calm and confident for his Macro midterm. He’d learned the tricks of his professor’s teaching method and lecture notes—the real strategy to college was learning the class, not necessarily the material. With one semester under his belt already, Adam had doubled the speed in which he learned his professors, and his scores had already improved.

When he flipped his test packet over and past the signature page, he started cutting through the test questions in no time flat. He sifted through the jargon to the core questions and picked off the multiple choice boxes as if he had seen the exam already. He had, in a sense. The exams never strayed far from the study guide. Macro wasn’t a notable weed-out class.

_What is the formula for GDP deflation?_

  1. _Global GDP x Real GDP x 100_
  2. _Nominal GDP / Real GDP_
  3. _Global GDP / Nominal GDP x 10_
  4. _Nominal GDP / Real GDP x 100_
  5. _Real GDP / Nominal GDP x100_



Adam almost smiled as he filled in the bubble for D on his answer sheet. _Easy._

He had his test completed around the same time as a good portion of students. At Harvard, being the first person to turn in a test was a confidence move. He was reminded daily that he was surrounded by geniuses. It was as inspiring as it was crushing to be surrounded by a class of people who would do so much in their lives. He hoped to be one of those people.

Once his test and answer sheet were handed in, Adam hefted his backpack onto his shoulders and headed out into the crisp evening air. The cold wasn’t as vicious anymore, though when Adam first came to Cambridge thirty degrees would have seemed unlivable. Now it felt almost balmy, especially with little wind.

He pulled out his phone to check what he had missed. The Crying Club group chat had exploded while his phone was on Do Not Disturb, going off on how insanely difficult the Calc exam had been (Adam had gotten a 5 on the AP test so he’d been able to avoid that one, though he studied with them anyway to prepare for Calc II).

_it was like they picked sentences at random from the book._

_bruh. i got slammed with the graph._

_you had a graph???_

He started typing out a snarky reply once he reached the bus stop, but his phone rang before he could send it. It was a 617 number, which meant it was probably his dorm letting him know he had a package, or—the Debating Union! They were supposed to reach out to him about next year’s enrollment. He hurriedly accepted the call.

“Hello?”

“Hi,” a cheerful voice greeted. “Is this Mr. Parrish?”

“Adam,” he said. The voice sounded too adult to be a student.

“Hi Adam. This is Katie from Student Health Services, do you have a moment to talk?”

The world darkened around him.

It was like staring into the slush puddle on the curve had somehow spurred him to scry, except this time he was stuck in his body.

The bus groaned into view down the street, and the mess of students waiting started to hum to life, moving and edging toward where the bus doors might end up on the curb, vying for a spot to get out of the cold.

“Yeah,” he finally said, begging the world to come back to him.

The bus sputtered to a stop and Adam found himself stepping on without thinking.

“Adam?”

“Yeah,” he said, louder. “I’m here.”

“Oh, good. Dr. Dhar would like you to come in for a consultation to discuss the results of your tests. Are you available tonight?”

“Tonight?”

“Yes, Dr. Dhar is working and has some time available this evening.”

“Can’t she tell me over the phone?” Adam asked. His vision swam, and the shapes outside the bus window faded to nothing, then colors, then nothing again. The guy beside him had a puffy jacket that bumped against his cheek. The girl in front of him was commenting on every Instagram photo in her feed.

“It’s Harvard College policy to discuss test results in person when possible. We really only do over-the-phone test results when you’re highly contagious with something. ”

“Oh, okay. I’m on the bus now, I could be there in fifteen minutes. I’d like to get this over with.”

“Sounds like I caught you at a good time, then!” Katie said, too happily. “Come on over, I’ll see what we can do.”

Adam didn’t have much experience with the healthcare system, but he’d always been told it was more difficult than this to get results. Then again, he’d waited two weeks.

“Okay, great, I’ll see you soon.”

“See you soon, Adam.”

When he hung up, he immediately texted Fletcher.

_Is bronchitis contagious?_

Fletcher hadn’t answered by the time Adam stepped off the bus by the Smith Campus Center. When he stepped through the doors, his phone buzzed. It was Fletcher.

_Depends on the type. You might have chronic, so no. Other kind and I would have gotten it I think. Did they call?_

Adam wanted to sit down. He wanted to run out into the cold and feel the burn of it again, to let it swallow him up before he heard anything. Maybe it was just bronchitis.

He searched it online, where an article explained the differences between chronic and acute bronchitus. Acute was short term and resolved on its own, usually accompanied by cold or flu. Chronic lasted three months and could reoccur for up to two years after the first case. It was listed as a serious lung disease, but Adam let out a sigh of relief. That explained the chipper attitude on the phone, the sensation of something serious. Of course it was serious, it was a lung disease. But he was young, and he never went anywhere near his father anymore, so he wouldn’t be inhaling any more smoke.

His body was still growing. Even if it did last a year or two, he would grow out of it.

_Yeah, they called,_ he wrote to Fletcher. _Figuring it must be chronic. I’m going in now._

The burden of the unknown lifted from his shoulders as he headed up the stairs to the student health office. His lungs shivered slightly as he took in a deep breath, and he fought the urge to cough.

“Katie?” he greeted in his best Gansey voice.

“Adam Parrish, I presume?” Katie replied, smiling up at him with too-white teeth. Adam figured she must also work in the Harvard dental offices.

“That’s me.”

“I’ve got you all signed in already, if I can just see your ID?”

He handed it over, already planning on how he would tell Ronan. The easiest way would be to just tell him. To call him on the phone and say _“now the doctors are saying I have chronic bronchitis, but I’ll be fine.”_ He knew Ronan would freak, would demand to see him, and Adam would remind him that spring break was only two weeks away. He would find out more information, and if he really wanted to, Ronan could set him up to see a specialist in DC (though the specialists probably looked at Harvard for answers).

Katie stood from her chair after she handed him the ID. “Come right this way. Want a lollipop? They’re for the kids, but we don’t see many of those unless they’re faculty’s families.”

Adam looked at the glittering bowl of plastic-wrapped suckers and shook his head. “I’ll grab one on my way out, if Dr. Dhar says I earned one.”

Katie laughed at the joke, but cut it off just perfectly so he couldn’t tell if she was being polite or genuinely thought he was funny. No wonder she worked at Harvard.

She led him down a hallway with wood laminate flooring. It looked more like an office building than the doctor’s office atmosphere he remembered. When she opened an office door, he saw a tidy office desk with two sleeping computer monitors, some potted plants, and comfortable seating.

“And before you say anything about it, yes, those are condoms in the bowl,” Katie said with a roll of her eyes. “Student health services always advocates for safe sex. And now that that’s over with, have a seat in here and Dr. Dhar will be right with you.”

Adam couldn’t help but laugh when he stepped inside to see that yes, there was indeed a bowl of condoms sitting there. His gaze wandered around the room to the slate walls and the woodgrain on the desk. It was a nice office, but clearly a placeholder. Brochure racks were empty except for the generic Harvard brochures, and one talking about the risks of STDs and STIs. He decided that he would work that one in when he told Ronan.

_“The only brochure in the office was about STDs. Who have you been sleeping with, Lynch?”_

He smiled, trying to imagine what Ronan’s face might look like when he asked that. Maybe a video chat would be better. That way he’d be able to see.

Adam leaned back in the chair.

He was still grinning with there was a soft knock at the door. Dr. Dhar entered looking a little different than last time. Her hair was tucked in a low, tight bun, and she had glasses on a chain around her neck that dangled next to her stethoscope. In her hand was a folder, presumably his.

“Good to see you again, Adam,” she said. Her voice carried something thick.

Adam stood to greet her and shook her hand. “Hi, Dr. Dhar.”

She motioned back to his chair and Adam sat down again, still smiling. “I understand you have my test results?”

“Yes,” she replied, but her smile was thin. She laid the folder on the table, still closed. “How are you feeling?”

“Pretty much the same,” Adam said. “Hasn’t gotten any worse, if that’s what you mean.”

The worst was over. Or happening. He could feel it now. It wasn’t getting worse.

Dr. Dhar splayed her hands on the table, collecting herself.

“Adam, what I’m going to tell you now is very important,” she said.

When she didn’t continue right away, Adam’s smile flickered. “I know, Dr. Dhar. It’s okay. I’m ready.”

She looked at him in a way that said she thought he wasn’t. She didn’t know Adam was prepared. He already—

“You’ve been diagnosed with stage two adenocarcinoma lung cancer, Adam.”

All at once, her voice sounded very far away.

“Bronchitis,” Adam blurted out. “It’s bronchitis, though.”

Dr. Dhar frowned and shook her head slowly. “Adam, it isn’t bronchitis. You have lung cancer.”

Sound stopped immediately. Once again he felt like he’d started scrying, his body pulled inward so fast he nearly lost control of it as he swirled in the blackness of self. Dr. Dhar stared at him, her gaze patient. She seemed so far away. He couldn’t even find the ability to move his mouth.

He didn’t smoke. He’d never smoked. He didn’t even smoke weed when half of Agloinby had done that at least once.

Ronan. Oh god. Oh no. _Ronan._

Adam found himself again at the same speed he’d been lost. This time his body was wholly numb. Emotion had vacated him completely, his mental state running a well-worn track that had started in childhood.

“I want you to explain everything to me,” he said slowly, staring at the folder. “But first I want to know how bad this is. In layman’s terms, please.” _Tell me how to explain it to him._

Dr. Dhar had seemed composed before, but in that moment she took on a kind of grace Adam suspected wasn’t common in many doctors.

“We have to confirm that the cancer has traveled to your lymph nodes, but the x-rays indicate it has,” she explained. “I want to precursor what I’m going to tell you by saying that your outlook is likely better than the statistics. You’re young, relatively healthy, and the data we have doesn’t factor in the new treatments that have been developed.”

“What’s the statistic?” Adam asked, deadpan.

“Thirty three percent.”

“For how long?”

“That’s a five year survival rate.”

Five years. Harvard was a four-year sabbatical from his ‘real life;’ a meaningful but small part of adulthood. But all of a sudden it swallowed up over half of the time he had left to live. Potentially. Probably. _Literally_ probably.

He had prepared a million times over for that stupid question: _where do you see yourself in five years?_

_“Away from all of this,”_ he had told the Harvard peer interviewer during senior year when a bee demon had been feasting on Cabeswater and tearing Ronan apart from the inside out. “ _I’ll have made something of myself, defied every destiny Henrietta tried to set for me.”_

But just as Ronan couldn’t stray from the ley line without complications, it seemed Adam had finally been punished for his leaving home.

“How—I mean, how long does it look like I have?” Adam asked.

Dr. Dhar shook her head. “It’s hard to tell right now. The advantage is that it’s likely slow-growing, meaning it takes a year or so to double in size.”

“Treatment?”

“I’m going to arrange a consultation with my good friend, Dr. Gwen Schafer, here on campus. She’s a lung cancer specialist, and she’ll administer more tests to help determine a treatment plan.”

Adam gripped the arms of the chair. “What’s the typical treatment, though? Chemo or something?”

Dr. Dhar folded her hands. “Surgery. What type will depend on your cancer. Usually in conjunction with chemotherapy and radiation treatments, but Dr. Schafer will know about any new treatments that might be more effective.”

“Will I have to drop out of school?” He couldn’t hide the despair in his voice. Getting into Harvard was supposed to be the hard part. Getting his degree the next. Not this. Not _this._

“Adam,” Dr. Dhar said softly. “We’ll of course discuss all of these things with your professors when the time comes. You don’t need to worry about grades or exams right now. Stress won’t make this any easier.”

He was going to throw up. Ronan had never actually begged him not to go to Harvard, but Adam had heard it in the silence. He remembered the sick in his stomach when he had finally left the Barns behind, how awful it had been for him when everyone else on campus had been elated. And now he shouldn’t have gone at all. Now he knew he should have listened to that part of him that told him to stay. Cancer had been in him then. Cancer had been growing in his lungs since high school, probably.

“Can I do online classes?” he asked. “Please? I can’t—I can’t—”

Adam shut his mouth and smarted. He was better than this. He had to approach this rationally. He had to meet with this doctor and figure out how to make this go away. A third of a chance was still a chance.

He looked at his watch. The glass face was slightly dimmed with a blueish sheen that meant Ronan was asleep. Dreaming, napping, or both. Adam carefully unclasped the watch and put it in his backpack. He didn’t want Ronan to have any part in this, not yet. Not until he knew how to fix it.

“I’d like to schedule that appointment with Dr. Schafer right away,” Adam said in the most professional tone he could muster. “I have a practice midterm tomorrow morning that I need to attend, but other than that, I’m free. I’d also like to discuss how to tell my professors about this—I want to take my exams and go home for spring break. And…I want to know who I can talk to in case I decide to stay with my family.”

An hour later, Adam left the Smith building with a crimson folder in his hands. He didn’t shake, he didn’t cry: instead, he had a mission. Somehow he would find a way though this, and once he had a plan, he would tell Ronan in person on spring break. Halfway through, so they could have some normal days together. Their last normal days, probably.

He looked at himself in reflection of the bus stop structure and hardly recognized the face staring back at him. The Adam that looked back was grey-skinned with impossibly dark circles under his eyes. His cheekbones stuck out too sharply, his jaw looked like skin had been stretched over the bone like canvas. Of course he had cancer. How could he have looked at himself in the mirror and not known?

The x-ray photograph in his folder showed the cobwebs of cancer cells in his lung, the tangible proof of the wrongness in him. It was strange to think that he was the only one who knew about it right now. The length of his life had just been slashed to a nub, yet only he knew.

Adam clutched the folder to his chest and thought about what to do. A part of him wanted to hide it all until the treatment worked or it didn’t, but Dr. Dhar’s pamphlet encouraged him to speak to someone. He just wasn’t sure that person should be Ronan, not at first. But _not_ telling Ronan first felt cruel.

He swallowed, watching as the Adam staring back at him swallowed too—his skin pulled taut and too much of his throat moved to do it.

What would knowing do? Adam could only see the curse in it, like he would be feeding Ronan the forbidden fruit. He would be damning the love of his life to the knowledge of death, and he wasn’t sure he could do that. And was he really dying anyway? He didn’t feel that much pain. How would it even kill him? Some mutated cells in his lungs—what could they do?

But as he breathed he felt the new weight in his chest. A foreign body, a splatter of cells multiplying little by little in the warm confines of his spongey right lung. He knew what it could do, even if he wanted to think that he could avoid it. Magic couldn’t prevent it, and Adam didn’t want to be remade like Gansey had been. As he shouldered his backpack and hopped on the bus, he closed his eyes and thought of the Barns. He thought of what it would feel like to die there, if that was really what he wanted.

No, he decided. He wanted to die in Lindenmere, if Ronan would let him.

He didn’t know how he would be able to ask, if he would have time. He didn’t think it would be right to die there without asking first. Maybe Ronan could ask Noah what it felt like, if he could go where Noah had gone.

His phone buzzed with more messages about calculus exams, people on the bus stared at their phones or out the window or picked at their sleeves. Adam just stood.

Not Lindenmere, then. Just someplace quiet. That would be good enough, he decided.

As long as it was somewhere Ronan could visit, he felt that would be okay.


	6. Chapter 6

Ronan couldn’t wait for spring break. He crossed days off on his wall calendar each morning (Gansey said it would help, and he supposed it did) until he made that final X. A lot of planning had gone into the week—Christmas had been a family affair, but this was just him and Adam. There was no time to waste. Ronan had planned a small adventure for them, one that started with a surprise drive to DC to meet Adam when he stopped at Declan’s overnight. Ronan didn’t understand why he wanted to prolong his journey and spend even a second of his break with _Declan_ , but Adam was more tired than usual since he started fighting the bronchitis thing. If it was even bronchitis; Adam said he was showing all the symptoms for it, but evidently needed more testing. Or something. Adam sounded okay on the phone, and usually Ronan could tell from his voice if things were bad.

“Both of you have to be good,” Ronan said as he packed a duffel full of supplies and clothes into the trunk of the BMW. Chainsaw’s cage sat in the back too, and a smaller luggage bag for Opal. “Maura is being nice to us so Adam can have a little peace when he comes home.”

“I want to see him,” Opal said, sniffling. She latched onto Ronan’s pant leg.

Chainsaw nervously shifted from foot to foot on his shoulder.

“You’ll be able to see him,” Ronan assured her. “He just needs some sleep first, you know? College is fucking tiring or whatever. Then he’ll be around to do whatever you want.”

Opal didn’t reply, she just clutched tighter to his leg until Ronan lifted her up and buckled her into the back seat.

Fox Way looked the same as it always did when Ronan pulled up, and Maura stepped out onto the porch looking…excited. It made Ronan uncomfortable. Psychics in general made him uncomfortable, save for one he was in love with.

“Our guests are here!” Maura announced, hands on her hips. Opal stayed close to Ronan as he approached and pulled a crumpled hundred dollar bill from his pocket.

Maura looked at it, horrified. “I hope that isn’t for me.”

“I can flatten it out, if you want,” Ronan said, heat coming to his neck and burning there.

“Not a chance, you don’t need to pay me for this.”

“The Lynch kid is here?” Calla said, peeking from the doorway. She smiled at him, her plum lipstick stretching on her face. “Want to come sit down?”

“Not a fuckin’ chance,” Ronan said, fighting the urge to take a step back.

“Leave him be,” Maura scolded. “He wants to go see his loverboy.”

“How romantic,” Calla said, her eyes glinting with mischief.

Ronan found himself regretting leaving Opal with these women.

Of course, Opal left his legs only to run straight to Calla, grinning like mad, as if she had read his mind. Maybe she could, he didn't really know.

“Please, just, uh, take care of them,” Ronan said as he looked back to Maura. He pocketed the bill. “I have to see how Parrish is doing, but I’ll be by to pick them up Wednesday at the latest.”

Something flickered in Maura’s eyes, but her smile didn’t fade. “Tell him I said hello. Of course he needs his rest—your surprise is going to work, by the way.”

Ronan scowled. “Yeah, yeah. There’s a binder in Opal’s bag—has everything they need. Directions and shit.”

He unloaded Opal’s luggage and Chainsaw’s things. Chainsaw found trash on the porch, and when Ronan tried to say goodbye to her she flew into the house without looking back once. He stuffed the hundred into Opal’s bag pocket before handing both to Maura, careful not to touch her hands. He didn’t want any readings.

“Thanks, by the way,” Ronan said as he opened the door to get into the BMW. “For doing this.”

“That’s what family is for,” Maura replied. “Have you talked to Gansey? Blue said they might be getting home a little early. Maybe they’ll be able to see Adam while he’s here.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Ronan said. He didn’t want to—he wanted Adam to himself for just one little piece of time. “Don’t let those brats misbehave.”

When he got into his car and pulled away, he didn’t let himself think about it too much. Instead, he turned up his music and floored it. He planned to make it to DC in record time.

* * *

“He’s on the way, right?” Ronan asked, pacing by the windows of Declan’s immaculate townhome. Adam was supposed to have arrived in DC three hours ago, judging by the time he had texted Declan that he was leaving.

“The information hasn’t changed since you last asked me, Ronan,” Declan said, irritated. He had a thick, dry-looking book about some obscure politician open in his lap and a cup of steaming peppermint tea on the table beside him.

Matthew was taking up the whole couch, his socked feet dangling over the armrest and kicking to the beat of his phone game with music so loud in his headphones that Ronan could hear it from where he stood across the room.

“Could you fucking text him or something?” Ronan hissed. “He’s three hours late.”

“He never gave me an ETA, so technically he’s not,” Declan replied, but he picked his phone up from the side table and tapped on it. There was a whoosh noise of a sent text. “There.”

Ronan chewed the inside of his cheek. The excitement of his surprise had turned to worry—he should have just gone to pick Adam up himself. It wasn’t like anyone at Harvard would recognize him. He didn’t have his own personal security detail out looking for a blacklisted boyfriend, for fuck’s sake.

The sound of a motorcycle engine had Ronan ducking from the window.

A text tone dinged shortly after.

“He’s here,” Declan announced.

“I fucking guessed,” Ronan snapped. He moved into the hall, folding his arms to keep from fidgeting. The guest room was in perfect shape, and Ronan had made sure the lights were dim and warm and sleepy.

A minute or so later there was a soft knock at the door. Ronan held his breath as Declan took his sweet time getting up from his chair and walked over to answer it. The door opened, and he heard someone shuffle into the house.

“Hi, Declan,” Adam said. His voice sounded frayed at the edges. Ronan's heart was in his throat--he hadn't really planned how to do this effectively. 

There was a small pause before Declan replied. “Uh, hey, Parrish. Do you have a bag? Do you need help with anything?”

“What? Oh, no. I just have this,” Adam said. “Thanks, though.”

Ronan couldn’t take it anymore. He stepped out from the hallway.

“Hey,” he said.

And then he looked, and he was thankful he had spoken first.

Adam looked like a husk. The bright, summery boy Ronan had kissed goodbye just a few months prior had turned into something hollow. His skin was grey, his freckles looked like odd marker dots on his cheeks. His eyes were ringed purple—dark purple. His skin was tight over his bones, and his face looked gaunt like a war prisoner’s. His fleece vest swallowed a thin frame, and the soft jersey fabric of his long sleeved shirt did him no favors.

Adam’s eyes widened. “Ronan?”

Ronan crossed to him immediately and grabbed him in a hug.

“Ronan— _please_!” Adam cried out, and Ronan dropped him suddenly, fear spiking in him so sharply he almost cowered.

Adam clutched his chest and hunched forward, eyes squeezed shut.

“Adam?” He glanced at Declan, who looked just as shocked. “Adam? Oh fuck—Parrish, I’m sorry—Adam—please—”

_Oh fuck. Oh fuck. _

Adam sucked in a breath and lifted his hand to grip onto Ronan’s hoodie sleeve. His fingers were white as bone. “It’s okay. I’m not hurt.”

He was, though. Ronan could see how the pain lanced through him, how desperately it _did_ hurt. And Ronan had done the hurting. He wanted to scream. He wanted to punch something, to hurt just as much as Adam.

Adam looked up at him, his smile soft. “I didn’t know you were coming to DC.”

“Surprise,” Ronan said weakly.

“Can I get you some water?” Declan asked, coming over in a rare show of blatant concern. “Have you eaten?”

“Water would be nice,” Adam said. He lifted his arm and coughed into the crook of his elbow. His sleeve didn’t hide his grimace, and Ronan knew he was trying to.

“Why the hell did you ride the fucking bike?” Ronan snarled. “With bronchitis? Are you fucking serious? I would have come and picked you up—I had no idea—”

“I’m telling you, it only looks this bad right now. I’ll be much better in a few hours. I just need to take some meds and rest.”

_Medicine and rest doesn’t fix how much weight you’ve lost_ , Ronan wanted to say.

Declan appeared with water, and Adam pulled a plastic baggy from his pants pocket that had a handful of pills in it.

“Heat up the French onion soup,” Ronan demanded, not even looking at his brother. “Parrish, you need to eat something with those.” Ronan fished in his pockets for the dream pills he had brought, these were bright blue. He offered them to Adam.

“I’m okay, Ronan,” Adam said. “I’ll take one of those later. I don’t want it to mix with these—one of them makes me nauseous sometimes.”

_Sometimes._ How long had Adam been taking these?

Ronan watched helplessly as Adam swallowed all of the pills dry, then washed them down with the water. He caught the grimace again.

“I’m taking you to bed,” Ronan said, and he wouldn’t be argued with.

“Shameful, Lynch--not in front of your brothers,” Adam joked, but there was pain in his eyes. 

Ronan stepped closer. “Can I put my arm around you?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Adam said, nodding. He set his water down on the kitchen counter. “Hugging will be okay too once I get some sleep. I’m sorry, I didn’t want you to see me like this. It’s not as bad as it looks.”

Declan shot him a look over Adam’s shoulder that made Ronan’s stomach drop. He took Adam’s backpack off his left shoulder where it hung by one strap.

“Fucking Christ, Parrish! You carrying cinderblocks in here?” His backpack was so heavy that it seemed impossible someone of Adam’s current size could carry it. Fuck Harvard. Fuck whatever was going on with Adam’s body.

“Watch it, Ronan,” Declan muttered from where he was putting a pot on the stove.

Ronan wove his arm around Adam and led him to the guest room without another word. His dreams of camping in the mountains on their way home were slipping through his fingers—there was no way Adam was healthy enough for that.

“It’s not—”

“It looks pretty fucking bad,” Ronan snapped, and he was afraid.

Adam rested his head on Ronan’s shoulder as they entered the bedroom, and Ronan felt him let out a sigh at the sight of the bed.

“I’ll be fine,” Adam said. “I promise.” He turned his head and kissed Ronan’s cheek. At least his lips still felt soft. Ronan turned to give him a proper kiss.

He tasted pills, but he deepened the kiss anyway.

Adam broke away shortly into it, and took a deep breath. “Sorry—that was nice. There’s inflammation right now, makes it hard to kiss like I want to.”

“Yeah,” Ronan said, kissing Adam’s temple instead. He smelled faintly sterile. It made Ronan feel sick himself.

Ronan set down Adam’s bag and sat himself on the bed. He wasn’t sure what to do but sit there. Adam looked so frail—how could he not have heard it in his voice?

“Help me take this jacket off,” Adam said as though reading his thoughts.

Ronan stood again and unzipped the fleece, carefully pulling it from Adam’s shoulders.

He gripped the hem of Adam’s shirt but was stopped with a hand. Adam looked up at him with tired eyes.

“It’s going to look bad, but I promise you it’s temporary.”

Ronan just swallowed and didn’t reply. He lifted Adam’s shirt over his head and saw what he was talking about. There was a red mark the size of a baseball on his pec that looked like sunburn. It _was_ sunburn. The skin there was burnt, inflamed, and peeling.

“Want to explain?” Ronan asked, his eyes glued to the mark. 

“Like I said, temporary. It’s a reaction to a treatment,” Adam replied, moving over to his bag to pull out an oversized t-shirt.

“I bet Declan has some aloe—”

“No.” Adam shook his head. “I have to leave it alone. The meds I took help with the swelling.”

Ronan’s jaw clenched. “Why didn’t you tell me about any of this, Adam?”

Adam’s head poked through the shirt. Ronan’s only relief was that his torso didn’t look as bad as he originally thought, though he was definitely thinner than Ronan remembered. He still has his muscle, but now his ribs were readily visible.

“If I tried to explain it over the phone, you’d picture what you’re seeing right now. It’s okay, you’ll see.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better,” Ronan argued.

“I know,” Adam murmured, moving over to him. He leaned down, and Ronan instinctively tipped his head up to meet his kiss. Still tasted like pills. “I’ll tell you all about it once I’ve slept. I’m going to be really tired today and most of tomorrow because of the meds, but then I’ll be fine for all of break. It’s already getting better.”

Something twisted in Ronan’s gut. It didn’t look better at all. Nothing about this said "better" to him.

“Get in bed, then,” Ronan said. “I’m gonna cuddle the fuck out of you and feed you soup until you hate me.”

Instead of replying, Adam rested his head on Ronan’s collarbone, but Ronan didn’t know what to do with his hands so he just stood there.

“I love you,” Adam murmured after a stretch of silence. “Thank you for coming to surprise me.”

“Parrish…” He couldn’t finish his thought. He couldn’t explain the way it felt to have Adam this close and yet not have Adam at all. This person wasn’t Adam, this was a sick version of him. A version that made his bones feel cold.

His hands came to Adam’s arms, rubbing up and down there. He helped Adam into bed and took off his shoes for him, then his pants. Adam was asleep before Ronan had even folded up his clothes. He pressed a kiss to his cheek, then crept out to tell Declan that soup could wait.

Instead of protesting like he usually would, Declan just nodded and forced the bowl on Matthew, who had eaten french fries for dinner anyway. When Ronan returned to the guest room, he curled up with his boyfriend and pulled the covers over him.

He watched Adam breathe. It was slow, methodical, normal breathing. Occasionally Adam flinched in his sleep.

Ronan took his hand and held it. After that, Adam didn’t flinch again.

When Ronan woke up without dreaming, he believed that maybe some magic had leaked from the nothingness. The magic that had once been Cabeswater but was now Lindenmere loved Adam dearly, and to see him in pain through Ronan’s eyes had probably hurt it somehow. Or made it worry. Either way, when Ronan looked at Adam sleeping, he looked completely different than he had the night before. His skin had regained color, his freckles no longer looked out of place. His lips were a soft pink, so very kissable.

But Ronan kissed Adam’s cheek instead. He didn’t smell like anything but Adam, and didn’t taste any different either.

Good.

He laid there for a long time and watched him sleep. He thought about what it would be like when Harvard was over. He hoped Adam would be happy then, and that coming back to Henrietta would be what he actually wanted. There weren’t many jobs for a Harvard graduate though, and Ronan hadn’t been able to force himself to ask if Adam wanted to go to law school too, and when. He wasn’t sure he could do another three years of this on top of the three he already had to do.

Adam’s eyelids fluttered, and Ronan smiled softly when he finally woke up with an inhale. He coughed, but it was weak and nothing like the angry one from the night before.

“Hi,” Adam greeted, his voice raspy from sleep. He nuzzled into the pillows. “I slept great.”

“Good,” Ronan murmured. He reached over, gently pulling up his shirt to get another look at the mark. It was still red and peeling. “Can I touch it?”

“I’d prefer if you didn’t,” Adam murmured apologetically. “It’s really easy to aggravate it.”

Ronan frowned. “How long have you had this? When did all of this happen?”

Adam tipped his head back, his hair pooling around his skull in amber swirls. “Past few weeks.”

“All of this for bronchitis?”

Adam looked at him and something was missing from his eyes that Ronan couldn't place. He hated it. “I’d like some breakfast instead of talking about this.” His hand came up to Ronan’s face and thumbed at his cheekbone. He pulled his mouth into a pout. “It’s spring break.”

“Party time,” Ronan teased, relenting. He kissed Adam’s mouth and found he only tasted like sleep. “I have a surprise for you.”

Adam smiled up at him. Ronan decided he would kill someone if they ever took that smile away. “You do?”

“Mhm.”

“Do I get a hint?”

Ronan smirked. “What do you think about sleeping under the stars, in style?”

Adam chuckled. “Are we glamping?”

He blinked. “How do you even know what the fuck that is?”

“We _are_ going glamping, aren’t we?” Adam laughed. He moved up to an elbow.

Ronan scowled. “I’m not telling.”

“Okay, you don’t have to tell.”

Ronan growled when Adam kissed his cheek, but then he was grinning into the next few kisses. He’d missed this. He always missed this. His worry fell away the longer Adam kissed him, though Ronan was beyond careful when taking off his shirt. Adam moved a little differently too, he was less sure of his movements, of himself as a whole. But he was eager, and Ronan wanted him just as badly. They’d been apart for so long.

But something about it felt wrong. Something about the way Adam’s hands felt on his skin. They weren’t shaking, but there was something close to that emanating off of his entire body. Ronan couldn’t stop thinking about how Adam had cried out last night when he’d had put his arms around him.

Ronan moved up to his elbows once Adam had straddled his waist. “We shouldn’t.”

He hated that he had to say it. He hated it more that he didn't want sex. It felt like something only broken couples didn't want.

Adam looked down at him for a long moment, then nodded quickly. “Yeah, you’re right—I’m sorry.”

“Babe, don’t be sorry,” Ronan said with a shake of his head. “You’re sick. Isn’t your fault.”

Adam’s mouth opened like he wanted to argue, but instead he just moved off of him and out of bed.

“Parrish?” Ronan swung his legs over the side. It wasn’t like Adam to just leave, and it also wasn’t like him to apologize for anything they did in bed. It made the hair on the back of Ronan’s neck prickle. Had he said something wrong?

“I’m gonna shower,” Adam said, turning to him. His eyes had something heavy in them. Ronan still hadn't figured out what it was.

“Can I join?”

Adam let out a snort, then grinned. “Nope. But you can make me breakfast.”

Ronan gave him a sly smile in return. “Can I make pancakes?”

Adam cocked a brow. “Why pancakes?”

“Declan hates the way they smell.”

Adam rolled his eyes. “Pancakes it is, then.”

He paused before reaching down to his backpack, and Ronan could see that he was just staring at it, his thoughts clearly elsewhere. Adam’s lips parted like he was going to speak, and Ronan could suddenly feel a tension in the air between them that made his blood run cold.

But then Adam was moving again, digging through his bag for new clothes.

Ronan suddenly felt very small. He looked down at his hands, as though he might be holding the answer like a dream thing. He wondered if this was what doubt felt like. If this sickening feeling of something being hidden from him pointed to something much worse.


	7. Chapter 7

When the BMW pulled up to the campsite, Adam’s smile could not be contained. It was definitely glamping—they had a canopy tent with a wooden platform and a stone patio, complete with a mini fire pit. It looked like something out of a magazine. A large hammock was strung up between two trees to one side that had a perfect view of the sky. Candles glowed warmly in greeting, promising warmth and comfort.

Adam couldn’t think of a better place to spend a few nights with his boyfriend before he ruined his life.

The radiation burn on his right side throbbed painfully, especially where his seatbelt chewed into his peeling skin. His care team had warned against bothering it, insisting his pain meds would stop the majority of the pain, but that was decidedly not true. 

Adam was beginning to learn that cancer was argumentative like that.

For starters, his cancer was closer to stage three than Dr. Dhar had been able to see in her x-rays. The PET scan showed a bouquet of tumors clustered in one spot, and his lymph nodes were dotted with more. His best chance of survival had been to start treatment right away. It hadn’t taken Adam long to figure that out.

So Adam had gone to class and radiation treatments every weekday for the past two weeks. His last one had been the night before, after Dr. Schafer called a friend at a cancer center in DC to complete his final treatment for phase one. It was a big favor, even if it had made him three hours late. Declan wouldn’t have cared. He hadn’t thought Ronan might be there, both because Ronan hated surprises and because his guilt at starting treatment on his own couldn’t allow him to picture how that might hurt Ronan later.

When Adam returned to Harvard in a week, he would go in for lymph node surgery. He couldn’t dwell on it too much or the fear of it started to permeate his skin to the point that he could smell it in his dreams—well, nightmares. He rarely had dreams anymore.

They still didn’t know how long he had left to live. But Adam had looked up the statistics. Since his cancer was somewhere between stage two and stage three, his 33% had likely dwindled somewhere closer to 15%. He wouldn’t tell Ronan that. He also wouldn’t tell Ronan that the median life expectancy was a little over a year.

His hand slid over the center console, resting on top of Ronan’s. He fiddled with his leather bracelets as they parked, trying to ease away the tension that had been with them all morning. Adam knew Ronan wasn’t happy. He wasn’t happy that they were going to their glampsite, the same way he wasn’t happy that Adam had ridden the bike to Declan’s. Oh, and the unspoken fact that Adam was hiding his diagnosis, though of course Ronan could only feel that one.

“Are you going to be upset with me tonight?” Adam asked as the engine ticked.

Ronan stared out the dashboard window and chewed the inside of his cheek.

“Haven’t decided.”

Adam curled his fingers around Ronan’s hand and closed his eyes. He hated this, but he also couldn’t imagine telling the truth. He couldn’t do it here, he had to do it at the Barns where it would be safe for Ronan to sleep.

“Then will you tell me why you’re upset, at least? I’m not really sure, and I’d like to at least know what I did.”

“You aren’t taking care of yourself,” Ronan hissed. He kept staring out the window, so Adam knew he was actually deeply bothered.

“I promise I am.”

“You _aren’t_. You can’t keep promising shit when it’s clearly not true. How much weight have you lost?”

_Fifty-six pounds,_ Adam thought.

“I’m not sure,” he said instead.

“And your cough? And how tired you are, and how you won’t eat anything? Is this—I’m being serious, is this an eating disorder or something?”

The laugh that escaped him was crumpled and wanting. If only. If only it was a diseas of the mind instead one born from his father’s smoking and one cell that decided to mutate wrong.

“It isn’t fucking funny,” Ronan snapped, yanking his hand away.

“I know,” Adam rasped, fighting off a cough. He’s already coughed up blood into his only tissue on the way up. He couldn’t let Ronan see it. “No, it’s not an eating disorder. It’s the drugs and the…there’s a lot of shit.”

Ronan finally turned to look at him. His eyes glistened in the light, more than usual.

Adam held his gaze for a long moment, and he was tempted to say it. The word. He hadn’t actually told anyone yet. His care team just spoke about it, he never had to say it. His professors were told in an email by Dr. Dhar, Adam hadn’t even read it. He had started sitting in the back row for lectures, both because of his coughing and because he had already come to loathe the pity in their eyes.

He wouldn’t be able to stand it if Ronan did the same.

“I’m fixing it,” Adam said softly. His chest buckled as the cough finally surged anyway, but he stopped it at his lips. “I’ve been waiting since January for this, and I don’t want to fight with you. I just want to have my spring break.”

For a moment, he thought Ronan might start yelling at him. Instead, he just let out a sigh.

“Okay,” Ronan relented. “But we’re talking about this before you go back. If you lose any more weight there won’t be anything left of you next time I see you.”

That was the thing about Ronan: when he was faced with a problem he couldn’t understand, he turned away from it completely. Adam had seen it many times when Ronan actually attended classes other than Latin. In most cases it was infuriating, because with a bit of diligence, he could have it figured out, because Ronan Lynch was smarter than Adam was, even if he didn’t believe he was. But this time Adam was grateful.

“Deal,” he said. “Now, tell me you brought some food for this camping trip. I’m actually hungry now.”

He wasn’t, but the light that came to Ronan’s eyes when he said it was worth the lie.

Dinner was campfire grilled cheese with tomato, cokes to drink, and s’mores for dessert. Adam smiled around bits of perfectly toasted bread and gooey cheese, even as his stomach roiled. He took Ronan’s shirt off when he got tomato juice on it, and swiped chocolate off his lips with his tongue after s’mores.

His mouth and hands wandered Ronan’s tattoo as he listened to what had been going on at the Barns since winter. Adam knew most of it—there was only so much they could talk about when they called each other. Chainsaw and Opal were surprisingly with Maura (which undoubtedly meant Calla). Adam tried not to think of Persephone when he pictured Fox Way, because he couldn’t go back and analyze their interactions and how she might have tried to warn him of this.

The stars were out, so Adam decided to present his gift to Ronan a little early. Crimson wasn’t exactly a Ronan color, so Adam had selected a slightly less offensive grey sweatshirt with a crimson HARVARD on full display.

“You bought this for me?” Ronan asked, holding up the sweatshirt and examining it.

“I wanted you to have something from Cambridge. I hope that’s okay.” Adam wasn’t exactly sure how Ronan felt about Harvard aside from it being where Adam was. He never spoke about it much. He was sure part of it was the societal wariness that came from not going to college—from choosing not to go. It would be worse when Gansey finally started, if his gap year didn’t become two. And, of course, if Adam was still alive.

“Hell yeah it’s okay. Now when people ask me about it I can brag about you,” Ronan grinned.

Adam watched as Ronan put it on, and he smiled at the sight of it. Maybe he should have gone with full crimson and white writing. The grey reminded him a bit of Agloinby, but that wasn’t so bad either.

In reality, Adam had been given the sweatshirt by Dr. Schafer when he had been freezing while waiting for treatment. Evidently medical staff of her caliber got to pick whatever they wanted from the gift shops. Or maybe she had paid for it—he hadn’t remembered to ask.

They crawled into the hammock once Ronan had downed another grilled cheese, resulting in several near-tumbles that probably would have broken Adam’s ribs had he actually fallen. But they made it, and soon they were swinging in the chilly night air, his deaf ear pressed to Ronan’s chest. The stars glittered above, and the trees whispered happily around them.

It was the most comfortable Adam had been since before Christmas. He was the perfect amount of warm with Ronan’s body heat and the comforter, he was in the perfect position, and had the perfect view.

Maybe he could die just like this, he thought. When the time came.

“Did you ever think we’d end up somewhere like here?” Ronan asked after a long silence.

Adam’s fingers curled absently on his chest. “Not a chance. If we weren’t a thing I’d definitely be at Panama Beach with hot babes,” he muttered.

Ronan’s laugh was a rare thing, wild and unexpected whenever it appeared. But it did then, and Adam grinned wide, burning this moment into his brain forever so he could come back to it soon.

“You’d be going after babes in Harvard swim trunks, I bet.”

“I have a bit more tact than that,” Adam said. “You can’t just give yourself away, ivy gold-diggers would be all over me, it’d be way too easy.”

Ronan’s fingers gently scratched his back underneath his jacket. Adam’s medications had dulled the radiation pain, and he was thankful for the slight buzz they offered too. He never looked at the labels on the bottles—that was why he had his pills in baggies. He sorted them once when he filled a prescription and stopped looking. His past was already killing him, adding addiction wasn’t something he wanted to entertain.

“Lucky I got you before you became a prick, then,” Ronan teased, kissing the crown of his head.

“Just wait until I drop out and get working on my startup. I’m the next Zuckerberg.”

Except his fate was already sealed. There would be no fantastic business ideas, law school, MBAs, or advanced degrees. There wouldn’t even be a bachelor’s to hang on the wall. Ronan just didn’t know.

“So…you wanna create the next Facebook?” Ronan probed, his cheek resting against Adam’s head.

“Mm. No, nothing like that. Maybe before, yeah. I wanted to be someone like that—someone everyone knew and respected. Now I just want—” _Wanted._ “--to make a name for myself and be proud of the work I did.”

“In Henrietta?”

Adam closed his eyes. “In Henrietta, yeah.”

“And what about—I mean, is law school still something you want?”

If his body wasn’t recovering from radiation and his right lung wasn’t deteriorating and his life wasn’t coming to a slow end, Adam would have said he still wanted law school. But instead he let out a hum.

“I just don’t think law school is in the cards,” he said quietly.

“What, did you look?”

Adam let out a snort. “I was using the expression, I wasn’t being literal.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

He wondered how long Ronan had waited to talk about this. Adam could feel his body relax underneath his, and it made him want to cry because Ronan had no idea that a few years of law school would feel like a blessing in a matter of days. Adam was afraid to look at his tarot cards—not for his own future, but for Ronan’s. He wasn’t sure how Ronan would be able to survive the death of yet another person close to him.

“All I want right now is to be with you,” Adam murmured. “I want you to be happy.”

“I’m happy,” Ronan assured him, rubbing his back again. “It gets lonely, yeah, but it’ll be worth it when you come home.”

A lump formed in Adam’s throat. “And what if it isn’t?”

Ronan didn’t say anything for a long time. “The only thing that would make it not worth it is if you came home with someone else.”

There it was. Ronan’s greatest fear was being abandoned, just not in the way that was impending. Ronan thought he would find someone at Harvard, fall in love, somehow find something to share with that person that was more powerful than a dreamer and his magician.

“I can’t even explain to you how impossible that scenario is,” Adam replied in a choppy voice.

“I know,” Ronan said, though he definitely didn’t know at all. “But that’s the only way. Any other way, and it’s worth it.”

Adam nuzzled into Ronan’s chest. He wanted to scream, to say anything to stop Ronan from inviting fate to eat his words.

“We should go in the tent,” Adam said instead. “I don’t think it’s good for my lungs to sleep out here.”

They didn’t go right away. They kissed under the stars until Adam had to take a break to catch his breath, laughing at himself for his stupid lungs. Then they crawled from the hammock and into the warmth of their tent, where Adam did away with his sneakers and sweats but kept his shirt on to stop the pain from returning.

Adam told Ronan about spring semester and showed him pictures of Fletcher, the Crying Club events, and pictures of his dorm with Opal’s artwork and Chainsaw’s feather on the wall. They kissed more, they loved more, though not as much as Adam wanted to. All the while, his mind ticked off lasts.

_Last time in a hammock_

_Last time at this place._

_Last s’more, last grilled cheese, last camping trip._

Even Ronan couldn’t quiet his brain. Adam curled against him, they faced each other so that Ronan didn’t lean against his fragile ribcage. Their fingers intertwined. He watched Ronan’s blue eyes on him, the way his lips curled into that loving smile only he got to see, just before they met for another kiss.

_Take a good look,_ the voice in his head whispered. _You’ll never see him like this again._


	8. Chapter 8

Ronan wasn’t an idiot. People liked to think he was, because it was probably easier for them. When they found out he had money? Game over. Everyone rolled their eyes. He didn’t care. He didn’t try to hold himself in some kind of societal shadow like Declan. He was just Ronan, and some day a long time from now, he would figure out what that meant.

Because Ronan wasn’t an idiot, he’d picked their campsite to be on his ley line, as far out as he’d been able to map it, because he knew he would sleep, and he knew he would dream.

He just didn’t expect Adam to be there when he opened his eyes.

“You fell asleep before I did,” Adam said apologetically, offering a hand to help him up. “I hope you don’t mind.”

Adam looked like Ronan remembered him—the real way. His muscle and weight had returned, his hair a coppery gold like it got in summertime. His skin was warm, tan, and freckled, his cheeks slightly pink and sunkissed.

“You’re lucky we’re—”

“On the ley line? I know.”

Ronan fought the urge to roll his eyes. Of course Adam knew. He always fucking knew. Ronan took Adam’s hand and stood up, wondering if Adam was making himself look normal, or if Ronan’s dreaming was affecting him even as he scried. He wanted to ask what Adam saw, but decided against it. Besides, the view was nice. Adam’s soft t-shirt was stretching in all the right places.

Ronan finally noticed that there were trees around them. Thicker than Ronan tended to make them, and the leaves on the flora were so green that it was uncomfortable to look at. It was like the forest was over-thriving.

“I think we should—”

He turned to see Adam on his knees, his palms pressed to the grass. The fronds were wrapping around his arms, weaving together. Strands of a weeping willow stroked his cheeks and chin, tangled in his hair. Wrapped around his neck.

“What the hell are you doing?!” Ronan shouted at the forest.

The greenery froze, like a child caught stealing from the snack drawer.

“It’s okay,” Adam murmured as daisies sprouted in a carpet around him. The grass pulled his arms forward.

Ronan rushed to him, crashing to his knees as the flowers began sprouting from Adam’s skin. “Parrish, is this really you or dream you?” he asked, panic flooding him.

“It’s me, and it doesn’t hurt,” Adam assured him, but he was just a human-shaped pile of moss and grass and daisies. “It’s talking to me.”

“Then why can’t I hear it? It’s my forest,” Ronan growled, fingers itching to pull away the flowers and undergrowth. But he trusted Adam more than anyone else on the planet, so he didn’t start pulling, even if he was afraid.

The forest immediately darkened, and the air thickened with a threatening storm.

“Ronan, listen to me,” Adam said softly. “It’s just checking up on me. It’s doing all of your worrying for you—so don’t freak out. There’s no need for a night terror to come out of this. We’re on vacation, remember?”

Ronan scowled. “Don’t make me start thinking about hot babes at Panama beach that wanna bang you.” But he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The wind sang through the trees, a low, mournful sound. He hated it.

When he leaned back to rest, his hand pressed against something thick and sticky. _What the—_

Sap was raining from the sky in slow motion—thick, oozing drops as big as a softball.

And they were all landing on Adam with wet _thwops_.

“That’s enough worrying,” Ronan snarled. _It’s water. It’s just rain._

Faster than thought, the sap turned to water. The daisies wilted and the moss peeled away, and Adam sat up, breathing hard.

“Are you okay?” Ronan asked, reaching to grab Adam’s face to look him over. “Christ, I’m sorry.”

Adam smiled at him and shook his head. “Like I said, I’m okay. I haven’t been here in a long time while you’re dreaming.”

Ronan kissed his forehead just to be sure, and Adam’s arms came around him, holding tight. He smelled like Lindenmere, and threads of moss still clung to his hair. Ronan hesitated to hug back, still fearful of hurting him again, but this was a dream. Ronan was king here, he could make the pain fall away as easily as breath itself. So he wound his arms around his boyfriend and hugged him like he had wanted to at Declan’s.

“Feels better, doesn’t it?” Adam murmured, one hand moving up to cup the base of his skull like he always did.

It did. In Lindenmere he didn’t have to fear Adam’s coughing or hitched breathing or breaking his ribs.

Thick sap landed on his shaved head, rolling in slow motion down his face like an egg had been cracked on his skull. It wasn’t sticky because it was a dream, and Adam laughed, leaning back to swipe some with his finger and taste it.

“It’s honey,” he murmured.

It wasn’t honey, but it tasted like it. Adam offered him some on a finger, and Ronan took it into his mouth. It tasted like the feeling of breathing autumn air, crisp and golden.

As soon as he thought it, the sap turned to dead leaves and whisked itself away in the breeze.

Ronan took Adam’s hand and they began to walk, fingers laced together.

“It’s acting weird tonight,” Ronan noted as he glared at some lichen that was trying to wrap around Adam’s ankle. He’d never seen the forest so obsessed with anyone before, but especially not Adam. Lindenmere’s magic loved him like nothing else, and right now it was trying to take him from Ronan, and he hated that quite a bit.

Adam squeezed his hand. “Probably because we’re on a different point on the ley line. Maybe we’re close to another vein, so it’s trying to figure out what’s going on?”

“Maybe,” Ronan murmured, looking up through the canopy. The clouds had gone from black to a pregnant blue-grey, less ominous but still looming.

This was all very strange to Ronan, especially Adam’s excuse for it. The ley line energy was something they knew pretty damn well, Adam especially.

 _Greywaren_ , the trees sobbed. _Greywaren._

Ronan tugged Adam to a stop. He drew him close, protective. Something about this as very wrong. It reminded him of the way the air stilled just before a crash of thunder that made the ground shake.

“Is someone here?” Ronan asked the forest, looking around at the shadows and mist. Nothing stirred.

“It’s your dream, remember?” Adam whispered. His eyes were blue-grey too, like the clouds were moving in them. “I’m right here, Lynch. There’s no one else.”

 _Something else_ , the trees said. They were weeping. _Let us fix it. Let us see._

“There’s something,” Ronan said. “They’re saying there’s something they have to fix.”

Adam’s face lost color. “I think you should wake up now.”

Ronan looked at him. “What do you know?”

Because Adam knew something he wasn’t saying. Ronan could feel it in his bones, every moment where he wasn’t told was putting strain on him in places he hadn’t known existed until it was pulled taut.

“Wake up, Ronan,” Adam demanded.

Thunder rumbled above them and the forest begin to hiss with sudden rain. The drops stung as they hit Ronan’s face, but he didn’t get wet. When he spoke, his voice was low and threatening—a tone he never used with Adam:

“Parrish, tell me what you know.”

Adam broke away from him. The look in his eyes was hollow and fearful, like the night Ronan had punched Robert Parrish in the goddamn face.

Adam didn’t have a chance to move before the grass leapt for him. The trees whipped their branches and clawed for him, scratching his face, his arms, his hands. And Ronan just stood there, unthinking. Adam was hiding something from him.

Adam Parrish was hiding something from him.

The forest screamed. Thorns hooked at Adam’s mouth, prying his lips apart. A dream light hovered above for e moment, and then it flew into Adam’s mouth. He lurched, but his arms and legs were bound—

“Stop!” Ronan cried, suddenly thrown from his thoughts. Adam was strung like he was about to be tortured by Lindenmere. The place that loved him! Ronan’s place!

Tears leaked from Adam’s eyes as the thorns unhooked and the vines and branches retreated. Ronan was with him in an instant, bundling Adam to his chest.

“Are you hurt?” he asked, looking Adam over. He’d already asked that once. He’d already almost hurt him, but this time he actually had. There was blood running from Adam’s mouth.

Instead of answering, Adam doubled over in the grass and vomited. The dream light emerged and Ronan glared it out of existence. He rested a hand on Adam’s back, trembling. Lindenmere was never supposed to hurt anyone he loved. Lindenmere had a hard time hurting people he hated.

“I’m going to leave now,” Adam croaked. His long fingers scratched feebly into the earth to ground himself.

“Don’t go, I—”

Adam was gone.

_Greywaren._

“No!” Ronan roared, turning on his forest. “You hurt him! That was Adam! You _hurt_ him!”

He snapped his fingers and Lindenmere was gone, replaced with blue, moonlit sand dunes. There was only quiet and stillness and sky. No leaves, thorns, or anything that would cling and hurt. Ronan could control his dreamed—he was on his ley line. He could control them, but this one had escaped his grip somehow. Somehow he had lost a handle on it, _again_.

The sand was cool between his fingers until Ronan brought his hands to his face and wept.

When he woke up, Adam was gone. Ronan’s body hadn’t fully returned to itself yet, and while he waited he saw Adam’s scrying bowl—a white ceramic pot that had been part of a decorative set by the side table. And blood, splattered drops of it on the mattress, quick and successive.

He regained feeling, and found an enormous cactus flower in his hands, as big as a dinner plate. It was fluorescent pink, orange and yellow. Ronan set it aside on the pillow and jumped out of bed, stumbling to his knees and scrambling up again and out of the tent.

Adam sat curled up in a chair, knees tucked to his chest. His face was scratched, his lips flecked with red. He was staring at the fire, his eyes as sunken and his face as skeletal as they had been the night before.

“Adam.”

Ronan had no clue how to begin.

“Come here,” Adam said weakly. He opened his arms like a child, and Ronan ran to him, tears streaming from his eyes.

Spring break was supposed to be the time they finally had together, and so far Ronan had hurt Adam twice. Both times unintentionally, but what did that matter? He doubted it mattered to someone like Adam, who had been conditioned to believe he deserved to be hurt by people who were supposed to love him.

“I don’t know what happened,” Ronan confessed as Adam’s hands came to hold his face. “It’s never done that before, I don’t—”

“Shh,” Adam whispered. “I know it wasn’t you. Lindenmere has its own magic. I know it wasn’t you.”

“I’m so sorry,” Ronan said, his voice crackling with pain. He didn’t think he’d ever apologized so much in his life as he had the past few times he’d spoken to Adam. “Your face, Adam.”

“Tonight you can dream me something for it,” Adam soothed, his thumbs stroking Ronan’s cheekbones. “They don’t hurt much. Lindenmere wasn’t actually trying to hurt me, I don’t think. I started struggling and—”

It was all too familiar to Ronan. “It doesn’t matter if it meant to or not, it still did.” He wanted to pull Adam to him, but they were in the real world now, so he had to sit there like an idiot and cry instead.

Adam moved up to him and pressed a kiss to the bridge of his nose, then to his cheeks. “I think we should go home,” he said softly. “This is such a beautiful place that we can come back to, but right now I think we both need a place we know.”

“Why do I always fuck this shit up?” Ronan tipped his head back to look at the morning clouds, sniffling. He was trying to keep himself from looking like a complete mess. “How could I possibly fuck up a camping trip on the ley line?”

“Hey.” Adam sat up, pulling Ronan to his chest—gently. “You didn’t fuck anything up. I love it here. Last night was everything I needed and everything I wanted. We’re dealing with stuff we can’t control.”

“It was Lindenmere—that’s the one thing I _can_ control,” Ronan argued pitifully. He didn’t understand. It felt like part of himself had turned against Adam, like he was betraying himself.

Adam kissed his temple and Ronan tried not to be unmade. Every time he closed his eyes he saw Adam’s mouth pulled open the way dissection frogs were held apart in science class. His trees did that. His thorns punctured Adam’s cheeks, cut up his face and arms.

“What’s happening?” Ronan asked, his face pressed into Adam’s neck. “What’s happening to us?”

Because it was a _them_ problem, not a Ronan problem or an Adam problem. Since winter break, something had been opening up a divide between them that he couldn’t put into words. There was no expression for it, the same way there was no way to stop it. Ronan wasn’t on his phone much except to talk to Adam, but he’d talked to Gansey plenty too, and Gansey loved to wax on about how he and Blue were different, how there was no way they would fall into the trap of distancing from each other—and how he and Adam were the same way.

_“When you have a connection like the four of us do—there’s simply no way to put a wedge between it. The statistics don’t apply to us, we’ve been touched by things beyond our world.”_

And yet here he was. Adam was hiding something from him, likely lying about it, and Ronan had no idea what it was. Sometimes Parrish could be an idiot, but he was loyal to a fault. He’d promised himself to Cabeswater--his hands and eyes. He wouldn’t cheat. Ronan couldn’t allow himself to think it. There was no basis, no way in hell Adam would ever do that to him. The guilt alone would be unbearable and Ronan would be able to read it in his eyes.

“Please trust me,” Adam whispered. “I love you so much.”

 _That’s what people say when they’re going to hurt someone,_ Ronan wanted to—what he _almost_ said.

Ronan pulled back, his eyes brimming with tears. “Then stop lying to me, Adam,” he croaked. “Stop fucking lying to me.”

He saw pure anguish in Adam’s eyes, so potent that seeing it felt like a physical blow to his heart. Ronan had seen Adam suffering in may horrific ways, but none of them matched the devastation he saw now. It filled his mouth with bitterness equivalent to a Warhead, so violent he felt his insides reeling.

“If you want me to stop lying," Adam said quietly, "stop asking me questions I have to lie about."

His voice sounded far away.

“W-What?” Ronan blinked stupidly, as though that might rearrange Adam’s words to make sense.

“I’m asking you to trust me right now, and to give me a little more time, Ronan. Please. _Please_.”

Ronan gaped at him, unable to hide his shock and hurt.

“Are you—are you cheating on me?” He knew Adam wasn’t, but a moment ago he never would have expected Adam to admit to lying to him and to admit that he would _continue_ to lie.

It was Adam’s turn to look shocked. “What—are you serious? You think I’m cheating on you?”

“Not really, but you just admitted you’re fucking lying to me, so what am I supposed to think, man?”

Adam’s mouth pressed to a hard line, and his tears finally brimmed over and down his cheeks.

Maybe this was how relationships ended. Two people hurting, and one of them too stubborn or too selfish or too afraid to tell the truth to the other. Telling the truth was Ronan’s golden rule and Adam knew it, and he was still lying. He didn’t understand.

Adam buried his face in his hands and cried. Ronan cried with him.

 _“Be careful,”_ Gansey had said once. Ronan hadn’t listened, because he saw no way Adam could ever hurt him willingly.

Now he was finding out.

“I’m not—I’m not cheating on you Ronan,” Adam said brokenly. “That’s not—Oh god. I can’t tell you here, I have to tell you at home, we need to go home.”

Ronan looked up at him. Adam was a mirror: puffy, red-ringed eyes, blotchy cheeks, tears streaming freely.

“Why can’t you tell me here?” he begged—he _begged._ “Why does it matter?”

“Because I know what it’ll do to you,” Adam said, wiping his eyes. His hands came away shining and damp. “And I know you need to hear it there. And I know I need to be there when I tell you.”

Ronan wiped his eyes on his forearm and took a shaky breath. He looked up at the sky again, watching the morning clouds as damned tears continued to roll. His whole mouth tasted like saltwater and bile.

For a long time he just stared at those clouds while Adam sobbed in front of him. He wasn’t trying to be distant. He wasn’t trying to ignore him, but he needed to think.

He was in love with Adam Parrish, and nothing would change that. Even if he was cheating—and Ronan was pretty sure he wasn’t—he would still love him. But Adam was lying to him, and he didn’t see himself getting over that, not matter what he was going to be told. Spring break was quickly dissolving to nightmare, and he didn’t know how they were supposed to occupy the same space in a fight. Whenever Adam fought with Gansey they always separated for a few days until something brought them into each other’s orbit again. Usually Blue, him, or something too supernatural too ignore. Now they had none of those things until the weekend, when Gansey and Blue maybe showed up to pieces of them.

He was tempted to call Gansey, but that felt immature. So did fighting. So did getting steamrolled.

“I’ll think twice before I do something nice for you again,” Ronan said bitterly. He was as angry as he was hurt, and Adam deserved to know.

He stood and promptly kicked over the steel end table. It clattered to the gravel and the pots on top of it shattered among the rocks..

“This is exactly why I’m not—”

“Shut up!” Ronan shouted. “Just get in the car and shut the hell up!”

He stormed into the tent to start gathering their things, tossing aside the cactus flower as he did so. The car door slammed, and Ronan found his vision blurring again as he started packing. The BMW was close enough that he could still hear Adam scream in frustration, and then devolve into coughing that seemed endless.

He found a issue sitting at the top of Adam’s open bag when he stuffed his shirt back in it. The tissue was spotted with blood.

Ronan threw it in the trash, telling himself it was from the dream, even though he knew it wasn’t.

Outside the tent, he heard muffled, ragged sobbing from inside the car. He chose to ignore that too.

When he had collected what little they had unpacked, he threw it in the trunk and slammed it shut so hard the car shook.

He climbed into the driver’s seat, he didn’t start the car right away. Instead he looked over to Adam, who was crumpled against the window, still crying silently. The sight tore Ronan’s heart into pieces, sliced right through the sinew and muscle and into his soul.

It was impossible to be angry with him when he was so fucking upset.

“Adam,” he said softly. When Adam didn’t look at him, he said it again. “Adam, please.”

“Leave me alone,” he whispered. His voice shook like a child’s.

Ronan reached across the center console and took Adam’s hand. He pressed his lips to Adam’s knuckles, kissing each one. Then he just rested the back of Adam’s palm against his cheek and they sat like that for a long moment. Ronan thought about the blood on the tissue, then the thorns at Adam’s mouth.

“I’m going to take you home,” Ronan murmured. “And whatever you have to tell me, we’ll work through it there. You don’t have to tell me right away, you can tell me whenever you’re ready. And I promise I’ll listen, and I’ll really try not to be a jerk.”

Adam let out a miserable little snort. His fingers curled around Ronan’s and then pulled his hand away completely. 

Ronan reached over to the glovebox and opened it, pulling out a small pack of travel tissues.

“For your face,” he said, handing them to Adam. “And for your coughing. This car’s too expensive for germs.”

Adam blinked away his tears with wet lashes and took the tissues.

“I love you,” he said, his voice rougher than it had been a moment ago.

Adam looked up at him, his lip quivering. “I love you too.”

Ronan put the car in reverse and pulled out onto the road, then rested his hand on Adam’s knee while he wiped his face. Adam leaned closer, and Ronan let him dab at the moisture on his own cheeks until he could only feel the leftover salt caked onto his skin.

When Adam took his hand, Ronan averted his eyes from the rust-colored splatter on his arm.

 _It’s from the dream,_ he told himself.

His gut twisted. It was hard for Ronan to lie, even if he was only lying to himself.


	9. Chapter 9

By the time they arrived at the Barns, the sky was dark with clouds. The BMW smelled faintly of burger grease from their stop at a slightly-better-than-fast-food joint, where Adam ate his pickle and half of his burger before his stomach threatened to upend on him. He did finish his milkshake though, and that seemed to please Ronan enough that he didn’t say anything about it. Adam wondered if he would have anyway—their fight echoed in the silence the whole trip.

In the scheme of things, Adam hadn’t been that upset with Ronan. But once the tears started, he couldn’t stop them. He hadn’t cried since the night after his first radiation treatment when his body had throbbed and burned from the inside out and his prescription hadn’t been filled before close. It was hard to find enough pain to make him cry, but cancer was good at that too.

Steeling himself for the emotional pain was like leaving the trenches and heading into a minefield. He wasn’t sure how Ronan would react when he told him, and he wasn’t sure how _he_ would react to Ronan’s reaction. Dr. Schafer had given him all kinds of reading material on how and when and if he should tell family members. Some people got angry, others fell into despair, some stepped up to help, others turned away completely. He could see Ronan choosing any of those.

Regardless, Adam knew he would have to shoulder his illness and Ronan. The closer he came to dying, the more Ronan would need him, the more he would have to give. And he _wanted_ to give, he just wasn’t sure how much giving he would be able to do when his organs started failing.

When they passed through the security system, Adam felt nothing. His worst fear was already readily present. The darkest time in his life was already here. Ronan sucked in a breath beside him and squeezed the steering wheel tightly until they were parked under the trees.

They spoke in hushed tones as they unpacked. Adam only had his bag with him, and guilt struck him again when he saw an unused duffel in the trunk that was supposed to be for their trip.

It was the right choice to come home, Adam knew that, but he knew it was a kick in the face to Ronan, who very rarely planned anything, let alone a trip to a nice, secluded campsite for his boyfriend to relax in.

Guilt was feasting on him today, it seemed.

Adam carried his bag into the house and closed his eyes when he reached the foyer. It smelled like old wood and comfort. Familiar. Adam desperately needed familiar.

“You tired?” Ronan asked, resting a hand on his hip.

Adam was. “Yeah,” he murmured. “Come lay down with me.”

“Head up there, I gotta put this stuff away.” Ronan pressed a kiss to the nape of his neck, fond and as familiar as the walls around them.

Adam headed up the stairs, each one exhausting him further. His brain was mush, his eyes were heavy—and it was hardly afternoon. He felt like he could sleep the rest of break away without meaning to.

Ronan’s room hadn’t changed since he left after New Years. The only difference was that the bed was made, the pillows arranged in a very un-Ronan way. Adam smiled as he dropped his shoes by the bed and crawled into it. The sheets smelled like Ronan and rest, and Adam almost fell asleep the second the scent hit his nose.

Fighting was so pointless, he knew, but even he wasn’t immune to the venom Ronan had spat that morning. It had eaten at him since they got in the car, stripped down his defenses and egged on his fatigue. He didn’t want to sleep, but his body was begging for it, and Adam knew that meant it was inevitable.

“Hey,” Ronan greeted from the doorway. His skin had a bluish sheen in the pre-storm light as he carried over a glass of water and placed it on the nightstand beside Adam. He moved into bed with more care than his usual tackle of the comforter. Thunder rumbled outside, and rain began a steady patter against the windowpane.

Low lights flickered to life around them—all Ronan’s dream things. Adam tried not to think about the taste of electricity from the one that had flown down his throat. He knew where it had been trying to go, but he was glad Lindenmere hadn’t seen. Not yet.

They said nothing as they laid there together. Adam rolled onto his back and Ronan offered his arm for him to rest on. He took it, adjusting his skull to attempt to save Ronan’s arm from going numb.

Still, nothing was said.

Rain continued, harder now.

He watched Ronan’s face, watched as his dark lashes fell closed. Watched him decide not to say anything, decide not ask what he wanted to know—when he seldom ever asked anything at all.

Ronan’s dream lights fell dim again and whispered away from the windows as Adam stared at the ceiling. Tension wrenched tighter with each heartbeat, words stuck at his throat that would not leave him but _had_ to. Guilt was persuasive, and Adam had gone long enough hiding this. Perhaps too long.

The words came out like a breath, and Adam wished they would slip away as one.

“I have cancer.”

In the corner of his vision, he saw Ronan’s eyes flash open.

“Lung cancer,” Adam continued quietly, still unable to look at him, unable to stop talking. “In my right lung. They found it a few weeks after Valentine’s Day. I’m finishing this semester, then I’m coming home for good. I have a care team at Harvard, but they’ll be able to find me a team at UVA, or in Richmond, or DC for when I come back. The burn you saw on my chest is from my first round of radiation—”

Ronan sat up. When he looked at him, it was like he was seeing a demon or a spirit unliving. It shut Adam up immediately.

They stared at each other for a few horrible moments, Adam frightened and Ronan something else.

The silence stretched until Adam couldn’t take it anymore.

“Are you going to say something?” he asked, but it sounded like pleading. Maybe it was.

Instead of answering, Ronan turned his head away, got out of bed, and left.

It was a scenario Adam had planned for, so he didn’t call out or chase. He didn’t even move for a long time. This was why he had wanted to do this at home, so he could feel safe in his aloneness and Ronan would be safe wherever he went. Words were not something Ronan did well, and Adam hadn’t expected him to want to talk about it, but Adam wanted to. Someone needed to know why he was so tired and so hurting. He needed to tell them. 

Lightning flashed outside, and thunder came rolling in soon after, but it didn’t hide the sound of the front door slamming shut.

So that was it then.

Adam forced himself out of bed and opened his backpack, pulling out the now-worn folder that had all of his information in it. His x-rays, his scans, his diagnosis and notes. Dr. Schafer’s card, the names of his care team and their positions. Insurance information.

He gathered the documents and made his way down the stairs again, but only partway. He placed the folder on the stairs where Ronan would be able to see it, then made his way back up to the bedroom. By the time he made it back to bed, his body was shaking from fatigue, not from worry.

They were home, Ronan would be safe. He would never endanger himself right now. Not with Adam sick.

He closed his eyes and sleep snatched him too fast for him to resist.

When he woke, sunshine streaked through the window in Ronan’s bedroom. It was early morning light, and Adam realized with a jolt that he must have slept the rest of the day and through the night, leaving Ronan alone for almost a full day. He turned, but the sheets were still rumpled, and he knew in his bones that Ronan hadn’t slept beside him last night.

Adam tumbled from bed and headed down the stairs. The folder was gone, but he didn’t notice until he saw it splayed out in the dining room past the kitchen, its innards spread all over the wood.

And Ronan was on the phone. Actively.

Adam crept closer, trying to listen.

“—sure you can find fucking someone, Declan,” Ronan hissed. “It’s Adam.”

His stomach sank. Ronan had told Declan? Did that mean he’d told Gansey too? And Blue?

“I’ll dream more, then! And that’s bullshit, by the way. I may look like an idiot to you, but I’ve got my share invested in index funds that have been fucking exploding since I got them. I’ve got way more than Dad gave me—yeah, like fucking double. I know you do too—fuck you.”

Adam felt suddenly ill. He’d never heard Ronan speak that way before, like an adult. Like Declan.

“Start looking at options,” Ronan said. “The last fucking thing he should be worried about is—”

Ronan suddenly appeared in the threshold and Adam froze for a moment, knowing full well he’d just seen behind a curtain he wasn’t supposed to know was there.

“Options?” he asked, his voice tight.

Ronan hung up the phone and pocketed it. “Options,” he affirmed in a soft voice. Adam had heard him use it once, with his mother.

Adam shook his head. “Don’t. Don’t start talking to my like I’m dying—I’m not dying.”

Oh, but he was. Even as he spoke the words he felt the throbbing in his lung, the pulsing closeness of death.

Ronan’s eyes filled with tears as Adam’s throat filled with panic. This whole time cancer had been a grudging reality, something he thought about every minute of the day and dealt with. But now that Ronan knew, now that Declan knew, something about it had turned sharp and cold, like a blade slowly pushing between his ribs that he couldn’t pull away.

“I’m not dying, Ronan,” he croaked.

“Parrish.” Ronan put his arms around him, and Adam pressed his face into Ronan’s neck, trying and failing not to cry. He’d done enough crying the day before, but now his tears tasted different, they tasted real.

He knew Ronan was being gentle so he didn’t hurt him, but Adam wished he would hug him like he did when they were both in Lindenmere.

“Do you want to talk about it? I know—I couldn’t be in there when you told me, I’m sorry,” Ronan murmured.

“I know,” Adam choked out. “That’s why I had to tell you here.”

“I get that now,” Ronan said, lips pressed to his temple.

“Where did you go?”

Ronan shrugged. “I just kind of went. Got soaked, kicked the shit out of some grass, screamed and shit. Came back in and you were asleep, so then I got drunk. Passed out at midnight, didn’t dream. Woke up at six, fed the animals, then I’ve been looking at the folder.”

Adam tried to picture it all, but he knew there were probably things Ronan had left out. There always were, and Adam didn’t feel like asking to find out what he was missing. Ronan was here now, and safe, and didn’t smell like alcohol. That was what mattered.

“I have a scan on Monday when I go back, then surgery on Wednesday,” Adam said.

“I saw that,” Ronan said with a nod. “I’m going to stay at Declan’s when I drive you back, then I’ll drive up there for your surgery. And if they try to kick me out I’ll fucking kill them.”

Adam hadn’t wanted to ask, because he couldn’t. He couldn’t ask Ronan to drop everything to come to a surgery that wouldn’t even take that long. Worse, Ronan seemed like the kind of person who hated hospitals and treatment centers.

“Okay,” he said.

“I told Declan. I know I should have asked you first, but I thought it’d be better if I told him so you don’t have to keep saying it.”

It. _Cancer._

Adam nodded and reluctantly peeled himself from Ronan’s arms. At least it was only Declan. “So, um, did you need me to explain anything?”

Ronan looked at him for a long moment, then shook his head. “Not right now. I did wanna say that, I mean—I’m fucking sorry. All that shit I said yesterday—”

Adam shook his head. “No, don’t apologize. I’ve been hiding it from you. I just wanted things to be normal, but I guess…I mean, we’re us. Of course you’d know something was up. I thought I could bullshit a Lynch.”

Ronan smiled, but it was cracked at the edges. At least his tears hadn’t spilled out.

“There is one thing,” he said, and Adam blinked expectantly. “I think we should go to Lindenmere. Cabeswater brought Gansey back from the dead. I think it’d be able to do something about this. It obviously knows—it was trying to tell me, and protect you.”

Adam looked away. Of course he’d thought about using magic, using Ronan’s dreaming to fix what was wrong. Yet something in his gut told him that it wasn’t going to fix this. But he decided that if they were going to try, they might as well try now, before the spark of hope in Ronan’s eyes turned to a fire, before quashing it would do any real damage.

“Okay,” he said, reaching up to cup Ronan’s face in his hand. Ronan rested his forehead against his, and Adam closed his eyes. He didn’t pray often—he felt God had no time for the whims and worries of men—but he prayed then.

_Please let this work._


	10. Chapter 10

Ronan hated the way lies felt in his mouth, the way his words no longer had weight when he spoke them. He also hated the way lying made his vision sharper, his breath cleaner, his body charged. And he had lied to Adam.

The truth was a truth Adam would have hated more than his cancer, so Ronan lied. Everything in his life had just turned on its head, so why not?

The thought of what to do leapt to his mind the moment Adam told him about the cancer. It was as if his body already knew and his consciousness was finally catching up. A plan had been formulated without his knowledge, refined in the depths of his mind where actions like breathing and digesting hid themselves from the brain.

Action had always served him better than moping or crying or talking, so Ronan had let the plan run off, barely aware of himself as he ran down the stairs. He laced himself into his combat boots and donned a coat—black with a hood, nondescript. He thought of Adam abandoned upstairs with the his admission, but it wasn’t enough to stop him, not with the fury seething in his bloodstream.

He burst out the front door into the storm, slamming it shut behind him. Rain lashed him as he strode to the shed, eyes narrowed and jaw clenched. He was glad he didn’t have to worry about Opal watching or Chainsaw cawing at him—or worse, one of them finding Adam and worrying him.

It made him sick to open one of the plastic drawers in the tool shelf, but he was feeling pretty fucked up already, so Ronan didn’t hesitate to pull out the small handful of Kavinsky’s dream pills he still had on hand. Yes, he was able to knock himself into dreaming on his own now, but he needed something immediate and unthinking.

Just holding them made him think of sweat and beer and lying on the hood of Kavinsky’s Evo, of stupidity and youth. Guilt and regret hit like the venom after the bite. He’d gotten another dreamer killed, even though everyone liked to claim Kavinsky did that to himself. Ronan knew better. Ronan understood. He’d been so angry back then, and staring at the pills now made the rage in him turn to something liquid, something easier for his body to accept.

He already knew what he wanted to dream. He put a pill on his tongue and swallowed.

It only took two minutes for him to wake up again with the dream thing in his hands. One look over it and he knew he’d gotten it perfect on the first try. It hadn’t taken much thought, and he had imagined it so many times before that all of the rough spots had already been smoothed over.

He pocketed his creation and returned to the rain, heading back into the house. When he stepped inside everything was quiet.

“Adam?” he called. The house was small enough that he knew if Adam was awake, he would hear.

No response.

Ronan flipped up his hood and left the house again, this time to the BMW.

It was only when he was tearing down the road that he decided to process what Adam had told him. Adam had cancer. He’d known for probably a month now, and had already started radiation treatment. Ronan had a good basis of medical knowledge from his mother, researching every type of disease or ailment that could have caused her to sleep. Back then he had been stupid enough to think it had nothing to do with his father. With dreaming.

Now he knew better.

He also knew that Adam’s cancer followed the rules of the world as most people knew it, and Ronan intended to fix it with the means he had that no one else did. He had to go to Lindenmere and learn more about the powers he controlled, to learn more about what the magic could truly do. Medicine still made him fearful—much as it had with Gansey’s Epipens. Cancer was something entirely different, but he would find a solution. Adam wasn’t going to die.

Asphalt turned to muddy gravel and Ronan slowed the car to a quieter speed. He flicked the lights off, chewing at his leather bracelets as he made his way down the road. He was impatient, and his fingers itched to find his dreamthing and hold it again.

He pulled past the trailer and into the field beyond. The rain hadn’t yet slushed the parched earth, so his tires didn’t sink as he moved the car into position, hidden under a tree and among the long grass. The sun would set soon, and he already knew his special guest wouldn’t be arriving for some hours yet.

Once he was in position with a view of the house, Ronan leaned the seat back and closed his eyes. One more little thing to dream, this time his alone with no help from a dead boy.

When his eyes opened, the other dead boy he knew was standing there, holding his prize, rolling it between his fingers.

“I didn’t think you were capable,” Noah said softly. His eyes looked like a boy’s again, innocent and awed.

“Adam has cancer,” Ronan snapped, holding out his hand. “Give it to me.”

“He told you?” Noah asked, curling his fingers around the object and hiding it from Ronan’s view. 

“Yes,” Ronan said, rapidly building the walls inside him to prevent the surge of grief from overcoming him. Anger burned hot, evaporating his devastation in a few quick pulses. Good.

Noah stared at his closed hand and nodded.

Ronan blinked as realization came over him. His lip curled in disgust. “You knew.”

“I did,” Noah said softly.

“When I saw you, you fucking knew.”

Ronan thought back to the emaciated forearm hanging over the edge of the hospital bed and suddenly felt like he might vomit.

Noah looked at him, all man now. “Yes. I caught a glimpse of it, and so did Cabeswater. Or whatever you’re calling it now. Don’t look at me like that--it’s not something you can just tell someone in a dream,” he said.

“I liked you better when you were a ghost kid,” Ronan snarled. “The Noah I know would have told me.”

“The Noah you knew already had an idea it was coming,” Noah said evenly. “It wasn’t very clear to me then because the cell cluster was so small. If we were able to sense the beginnings of death for—”

“He’s not fucking dying,” Ronan cut in, hand curling to a fist.

Noah frowned. “You’re all dying, Lynch.”

“I didn’t come here to talk to you,” Ronan said. “Give it to me and get lost.”

Noah stared at him for a long time, but Ronan’s glare didn’t lose traction. He was going to follow through with his, he’d decided on it the moment that Adam told him.

“I’ll give it to you on one condition,” Noah said.

“It’s my dream. I can snap you out of here, asshole.”

“And I’d take it with me.”

Ronan weighed whether or not he was being told the truth. Either way, he didn’t have much time. “Fine.”

“Dying people want to find closure,” Noah said. “Even if that means finding out the people they hate still hate them.”

Ronan glared and stuck out his hand again, insistent. “Give it to me.”

Noah handed it over. The metal was warm as Ronan’s hand closed around it.

He stared at his old friend, disturbed by the way Noah looked back so calmly, like he already knew something Ronan didn’t. He fucking hated psychics. He closed his eyes.

_Wake up._

When his eyes opened he was already in his body, bloodstream still humming with Kavinsky’s drug even though he hadn’t used it to fall asleep.

In his hand was a silver bullet with a skull at the point, the jaws parted. Ronan stared down at it.

“Fuck you,” he said to the bullet. The skull’s mouth closed and its eyes glowed briefly, sealing in the words for their target to hear over and over until his worthless life bled from his body.

From his pocket he pulled a revolver that gleamed silver, the handle made of black smoke that only Ronan could hold. He opened the cylinder with thought alone, and pushed the skull bullet into the remaining empty chamber. Five other bullets were already locked in.

He wasn’t a complete coldblooded murderer, though. Only half of the bullets would kill. The other half would plague the target with the same dream schematics that he had created the security system with--except much worse--and they would last for a day, a week, or a month, depending on what bullet fired.

The lethal bullets would kill, but the one he had just created was the one he hoped would hit. His words would be the last that Robert Parrish would ever hear, and he would die knowing who killed him, but no one else would.

Ever since high school, he’d imagined what it might be like to kill him for hurting Adam. Back then it had just been for the abuse, but now it was for infecting him with the cancer that came from those fucking cigarettes he liked to smoke from the porch while he watched Adam walk across the yard and planned to beat the shit out of him.

Ronan spun the cylinder and jerked the revolver so it clacked into place. The tables had turned. Now it was him waiting for Robert Parrish to come home and meet his goddamn fate.

He only had one shot with the gun before it vanished forever, but whatever bullet fired would not miss Adam’s father, even if he aimed down the sights at someone else. Ronan was not a killer, but he would make an exception this once, because it was so fucking deserved. Eye for an eye and all that shit.

That is, if destiny or fate or God or whatever allowed the right bullet to hit.

Noah had complicated things, stretching his dream time longer than he’d wanted, but it didn’t matter. Robert Parrish was late coming home.

So he sat and thought about summertime, when he and Adam had planned to drive to Lindenmere, but ended up pulling over on the side of the road to fool around in the backseat instead. Ronan had nearly kicked the window out in the back, and Adam’s whole body had blushed with the heat inside the car because Ronan hadn’t thought to keep it running during. Rookie mistake.

 _“Won’t have this at Harvard,”_ Ronan had said only a breath away from Adam’s mouth.

 _“Then let me have it again so I don’t forget,”_ Adam had countered, hands spreading over his bare chest in a way that Ronan couldn’t think about without getting turned on.

Even then, cancer had been growing in his lungs.

A clatter brought him back to the present, and Ronan’s suspicion of Robert Parrish being drunk was confirmed when his decrepit pickup rattled into view, headlights not aimed to catch the reflection of Ronan’s. It swung wildly toward its parking spot and sputtered to a crooked stop.

Ronan exited his car and shut the door quietly, gently. Rain pattered against his hood, turning his hands to gleaming skin. This had been a long time coming. He cocked the hammer of the revolver as the black smoke at the handle curled around his fingers, fusing his hand to the gun. It made him feel powerful. Such a light, beautiful thing could inflict such necessary justice.

He aimed the gun at the figure that stumbled from the truck. Adam’s father landed in a muddy puddle that he spat vibrant curses at, curses Ronan couldn’t hear over the roar in his ears.

Everything went quiet in Ronan’s brain as he looked at Robert Parrish through the irons. Noah’s words meant nothing to him. Robert Parrish could have died months ago and Adam still wouldn’t know about it. He didn’t fucking care even if Adam hated him for what he was about to do. Ronan was either going to kill him now or later, and he would rather get it over with now.

His finger hovered over the trigger as Adam’s father finally got to his feet.

“Hey, asshole,” Ronan called.

Robert Parrish looked toward him. His eyes were blank.

Ronan fired. 

The recoil was jolting, but Ronan had fired a gun before. He held his wrist steady, watching the impact as the bullet hit Robert Parrish square in the forehead.

It made him feel powerful. A dark kind of powerful he knew he shouldn’t like—brushing shoulders with Lucifer, a peek into the world where God couldn’t follow but could only watch. He thought of Sunday mass as Robert Parrish hit his knees in the puddle, the water splashing up and hitting his drunken face. He thought of the Bible, of James:

_“Desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.”_

He took a shallow breath.

There was no guilt as he watched Adam’s father crumple face first into the puddle. He had expected anger to pervade, but even that was gone. It just felt over. Finally, blessedly over.

That is, until Robert Parrish began to scream.

Ronan lifted the gun to shoot again, but it was gone. He didn’t remember the weight leaving his hand. _Fuck._

He’d put in the failsafe for a reason, but he hated himself for it now. A non-lethal bullet had fired, a maddening one that had Robert Parrish writhing in the rain and mud, kicking the side of his rusted truck. The wind and rain were so loud even Ronan couldn’t hear his screaming, and that felt like being cheated. Robert Parrish deserved to die.

_Fucking Noah._

Ronan got back into the car and slammed the door shut. He didn’t speed away though, he just calmly drove into the darkness with the lights still off, watching Robert Parrish suffer as he went. It wasn’t enough.

When his tires finally hit asphalt, he slammed the pedal and fishtailed out into the night.

As he drove, he swore profusely, berating himself for letting any of it be left up to chance. Something felt new in him. At the start of the day he’d been a stupid, immature version of the person he was after pulling the trigger. He should have followed through.

The only thing that stopped him from turning around and strangling Adam’s father with his own hands was that he had already wasted too much time. He needed to learn about lung cancer and understand it to the best of his ability. Dreaming a cure would be easier if he knew what he was dealing with, and all he could picture was the red skin on Adam’s chest, the pain in his voice when he had begged Ronan to let go of him.

If anything happened to Adam, Ronan decided, he would murder Robert Parrish the next day. Not with his hands, but with something from his dreams. Undetectable until it was too late, and even then no one would know what it was or how to fix it. No one would care, either, because Robert Parrish was a fucking piece of shit.

So most of his lie to Adam wasn’t technically a lie. He _had_ gotten soaked, and when he had driven back to the Barns he _had_ screamed and kicked the grass as the wind howled. He had also fallen to his knees and grieved. Sobbing was too kind a word for it, because it had been an ugly thing.

He hadn’t been drunk, though. That lie had been so Adam suspected he was telling the truth, because alcohol always made Adam uncomfortable in one way or another. One beer had been in Ronan’s hand while he pored over the folder and took in the contents and schedules. He tried to ignore the heading on each page:

_PATIENT: A. PARRISH_

When he told Declan, there had been a long silence at the other end of the line.

_“Should we come down there?”_

_“No,”_ Ronan had said. _“I’ll handle this.”_

He would. As he held Adam to his chest in the kitchen, he knew he would do anything to make him safe. Their lives as kids were over. He thought about Noah, about his dream gun, about his dream bullet. About what he had tried to do. He still didn’t feel guilty, and he didn’t think he ever would. Not with how frail Adam felt against his chest, not with the way his ribs jutted and his shoulder blades were starting to look like emerging wings.

Someday Ronan would finish his form of justice, but not anytime soon. His window had closed for now, and maybe it would stay closed. But if it didn’t, he would go back to that trailer park and finish the job even if it meant spending the rest of his life in prison. If Adam died, he didn’t think he would be able to live at the Barns anyway. A cell would work just fine.

For now though, he had to focus on making sure Adam recovered.


	11. Chapter 11

Resting in the long grasses of a field that had been Lindenmere just moments before, Adam watched the clouds. Birds called in the trees that fringed the field, and the grass sang in a hoarse voice around him as the wind rustled in the fronds. He could feel the ley line energy pulsing at his back, and could still taste the blue, glittering pollen he’d been breathing for the past few minutes or months or years. Time never worked the same inside a magic forest.

The trees were gone, but he could still hear their murmuring in the soil, root networks far below him churning with coded messages for the rest of the hillside. He felt Ronan walk toward him before he heard it, and he didn’t open his eyes when Ronan’s combat boots came to a stop beside him.

They were late to their dinner with Gansey and Blue, but Adam didn’t feel his usual tug of anxiety. Ronan didn’t say anything about leaving, and instead crouched beside him before sitting down in the dirt.

“You feel any better?” he asked.

Adam flopped a hand toward him, clasping Ronan’s when he found it. He thumbed at the center of his palm as though that answered the question.

Ronan didn’t press. “C’mon then, Parrish. I can do the talking if you want.”

Adam was reminded all at once why they were here, because only in a time of life and death would Ronan Lynch offer to talk for him. For just one moment, he’d been able to forget, to get lost in the ley line.

“I’ll talk,” Adam said.

Ronan threaded their fingers together. “Let’s go.”

Adam sat up, his vision green and spotty from the sun shining on his closed eyelids. Then he looked at Ronan, his gaze wandering from his long lashes down to his lips and the effects to his vision cleared. They kissed softly, sweetly, until Ronan’s thumb grazed his cheek.

Ronan stood and helped him up, and Adam braced against him for a moment as the blood rushed to his head. They stood there in the field together, Adam clutching Ronan’s arm, the breeze caressing both of them.

It was the close of their fourth afternoon in Lindenmere, and the fourth day of the new normal. The normal where Ronan was constantly lost in thought when he wasn’t loving him, the normal where Adam didn’t hide his coughing and blood and pain. The normal where Ronan rubbed his back while he tried to eat an entire meal, where Ronan had lengthy phone calls with Declan and swore less and less.

“I feel like I’ve felt every time,” Adam finally answered. His lungs felt cool and lacquered with the same sweet mint of Ronan’s feel-good pills. Lindenmere pumped him full of blue, glittering pollen that reminded him of gold flecks in submerged sand. The trees soothed him while he breathed, and Ronan stayed away in the shadows, but was never far. The forest had warned him not to stand too close.

“Good,” Ronan replied, linking arms with him. Adam smiled as they walked back toward the BMW.

Their conversations were softer now. Adam always felt lighter after Lindenmere was done with him, like coming down from laughing gas. It was hard to notice how long it lasted, the same way it was hard to notice dreamthings until they were pointed out. When he did notice, he wondered if Ronan made it to happen that way, or if Lindenmere had done it for him.

He kissed Ronan’s cheek once they got to the car. “I love you.”

Ronan looked at him, eyes blue and wise and older. “I love you too,” he said. He kissed Adam’s forehead. “But we’ve got somewhere to be.”

Nino’s was the same as Adam always remembered from high school. The neon signs buzzed, the night air nipped cold in the parking lot like it always did in the beginning of spring. Adam had on his winter coat because Ronan insisted he be too warm over even the slightest bit cold. He inhaled the scent of grease and cheese, the dim, grungy light, the atmosphere. Nino’s had felt like the middle ground between people like him and people like Agloinby boys. Now it felt like an old friend, warm and welcoming.

He glued himself to Ronan’s side as they entered the restaurant, unable to wipe the slightly doped smile from his face. He _was_ happy. Lindenmere was working to remove the cancer from him and all he had to do was lie in the grass and breathe. When he had his scan, he could even hope that the cancer would be gone completely, or so small he would become a miracle to his care team. All because he was blessed with a boyfriend who loved him more than anything, who had gone above and beyond for him.

“Been awhile,” Ronan said, leaning into him and pressing his lips to Adam’s hairline.

He hummed in agreement, wrapping both arms around him and tucking his face into his neck. He could feel Ronan smile before arms were around him, holding him close.

“I see those fuckers,” Ronan murmured into his hair.

Adam let out a grunt, but didn’t let go right away. He took one more deep breath, then kissed Ronan’s jaw before turning back to face the dining room, where he spotted Gansey and Blue.

Blue’s hair was longer, more unkempt than her usual style. Extravagant beaded earrings waterfalled from her ears, matching a thick necklace that looked like it was made with bone, hammered metal, and maybe pearls. She had several thin shirts layered over each other in various states of tattered, the sleeves long enough for her thumbs to poke through the seams at the end. She looked like an adult version of the girl he’d seen last summer. Her neck was longer, her collarbone slightly more pronounced, her skin luminous. Her smile was wide and knowing, and when she caught his gaze her eyes sparkled. Somehow her appearance alone showed how deeply and truly she loved Gansey, and they were only touching at the shoulder.

Gansey, for his part, looked like a dashing National Geographic reporter. At first Adam thought he was wearing two shirts, but upon closer inspection he realized Gansey was wearing an earth-toned scarf made of a thin fabric, tied in a knot and tucked into a button down made of a fabric that appeared to be the offspring of denim and flannel. A thick, Sherpa lined jacket accented it all, and Adam noticed he had swapped out his old glasses for slightly thicker frames, brown instead of grey.

They both waved, and Adam waved back, but he couldn’t get over how adult they looked, especially for gap year kids who were supposed to be chasing youth a little longer.

“They look old as shit,” Ronan said under his breath.

“You sure that’s them?” Adam teased.

Ronan was in his winter jacket with a thin torn up sweater underneath, a black tank under that. He had his same ripped black skinny jeans, his same combat boots. Adam had his Christmas coat and underneath that a thrift store sweatshirt, his dark pair of jeans (versus his light pair), and high tops that were close to splitting at the sole. Ronan felt older, but he didn’t look it upon first glance. Adam wasn’t sure how he looked.

They made their way to the booth, and Gansey all but burst from his seat, running straight for him, arms outstretched. Adam swallowed, bracing himself for the same piercing pain that had come with Ronan’s similar greeting.

Just before Gansey could grab him in a bear hug, Ronan cut in sharply, hooking an arm around Gansey’s middle. Gansey was suddenly going backward, eye buldging, then was spun out of view.

“You don’t get to say hi to him before you say hi to me, asshole,” Ronan said, grinning wild.

“For god’s sake, I saw you a few months ago!” Gansey protested, but he was grinning too.

“Adam,” Blue greeted. She hugged him and it was gentle. Adam hugged her back, marveling at how her body felt so different, so mature. She hugged him with a dancer’s grace, if that was even possible. Maybe she had picked up ballet, even though that seemed to traditional for someone like her.

“Hey Blue,” he finally said as he pulled away. “You both look great. Like real adults.”

Blue rolled her eyes. “Unintentional. We just got back from exploring cave systems in Arizona. You wouldn’t believe how people act there—the Navajo population is basically ignored except where they can be culturally appropriated. We had an awesome host at our Airbnb—”

“Parrish! Look at you!” Gansey butted right in, ruffling Adam’s hair.

“Hey—” Gansey’s arms were suddenly around him, squeezing tight. Sharp pain erupted in his right side, but Adam just tucked his face quickly into Gansey’s shoulder. He smelled like woodsmoke.

“Dick, get off of him,” Ronan warned. Adam felt Ronan’s hand at his back and he remembered to breathe.

“Good to see you, Gansey,” he managed to say.

“Don’t sound so stiff,” Gansey chastised, pulling back. “My god, Adam, you’re supposed to gain the freshman fifteen, not lose it.”

Adam laughed. “Harvard has the worst dining, I swear. You have to join a final club or secret society or something to eat well. I haven’t bothered.”

Gansey’s eyes lit up. “I do have connections in the Spee and Porcellian Clubs if you’d like me to put in a word—”

“No, no. If I get in, I’ll do it myself,” Adam said. He tried not to think about the hopes and dreams of Harvard.

“Can we sit down?” Blue suggested, gesturing toward the table.

“Yes, let’s,” Gansey agreed, his smile somehow brighter when it was directed at Blue.

Adam felt his love for Ronan was shriveled in comparison, and he knew it was his fault. Ronan wasn’t totally present, because of him. He was watching Gansey’s gesticulating hands like they were on fire, scanning for threats that Adam would be too polite to defend himself against.

If Gansey and Blue were the sun, he and Ronan were a pothole puddle rapidly shrinking in the summer heat. 

He slotted himself against Ronan’s side, resting his cheek against his shoulder. Ronan’s arm came around him, protective and defending. Gansey and Blue were exuberant and all-encompassing. Their affection for each other exploded, while his and Ronan’s took shelter.

Gansey ordered two pizzas while Blue recounted stories of archeological sites and fascinating people they had met. Cheng was scouting their next opportunity to work with a chainsaw artist in South Dakota, and they would head out there in a few weeks.

“For how long?” Adam asked, fully aware of how the same words in the context of his own life were starkly different in meaning.

Gansey and Blue looked at each other. “Eight weeks?” Gansey tried.

“Roughly eight weeks,” Blue confirmed.

They smiled at each other and suddenly Adam couldn’t think of the last time he’d smiled at Ronan like that.

“And what about you two?” Gansey said, and his grin somehow turned to a higher level of excitement. Blue looked at him in a way that made Adam feel like he should panic. “Who wants to be ingrained in our minds forever as the one who tells us the news?”

Adam lifted his head from Ronan’s shoulder, glancing over at him to see if he knew what this was about. Ronan looked back and swallowed thickly, equally lost. His jaw fell open slightly, but he made sure he didn’t sputter.

“I’m sorry—tell what news?” Adam asked.

Blue laughed, folding her hands on Gansey’s shoulder. “You’re terrible at hiding things,” she said. “Lynch, you’re even worse. Tell us.”

“Oh fuck,” Ronan said, so quietly that Adam didn’t actually hear it, he felt it in his bones.

“Hands on the table,” Gansey prompted, folding his arms. “Let’s see them.”

Adam’s stomach dropped right through the floor. _Oh god. Oh no._

 _“I gave them a heads up,”_ Ronan had said. _“I told them we need to tell them something important.”_

Their new normal didn’t include happy things being important. Important meant Ronan had found something new about how he could get health insurance, or that Declan had told Matthew or that Opal was screaming in the barn so he shouldn’t go there.

Ronan’s hand came to his knee, squeezing tight.

Gansey and Blue thought they were getting married. Gansey and Blue thought what every normal person would think when their closest friends had something to announce as a couple. To them, important still meant exciting, important meant a milestone.

Gansey’s brow furrowed, looking between them. “You’re getting married, right? That is what you’re here to tell us with this—with organizing a dinner and the cryptic text?”

Adam felt Ronan go very still beside him and he realized that it had only just clicked in Ronan’s mind.

Something very dark and cold split something open in Adam’s chest, but it was distant. It was Ronan. He knew it, he could _feel_ it. He could feel Ronan’s heart breaking, because Gansey had just unintentionally dangled the future Ronan wanted so desperately, and for a fleeting moment it had been almost real. Almost.

And Adam had to take it away from him all over again.

“Gansey, I…” Adam’s throat started to burn, but he wasn’t going to let Ronan say it when he was clearly breaking all over again. “I have stage two lung cancer.”

Blue made a choked noise, but Gansey merely blinked. “I’m sorry, I seem to have misheard—”

“I have cancer, Gansey,” Adam said again, a little louder.

Finally, it seemed to register. Gansey’s eyes went wide and he leaned back in the booth as if he’d been struck.

“This has to be a mistake,” he said, shaking his head. His glasses started to slip down his nose. “Some kind of—”

“It’s not a fucking mistake,” Ronan snarled. He stood abruptly, but Adam caught his arm.

“Ronan—”

“He’s dying, Gansey. Nobody’s getting married. He’s just dying.” Ronan’s voice broke as he said it, then he wrenched his arm from Adam’s hold and stormed away, nearly taking out the poor waitress who was carrying in their pizzas.

Adam leaned over the table and put his face in his hands as Gansey and Blue politely thanked the waitress, who ran off as fast as she could.

“Adam,” Blue said.

“I’m sorry,” he choked out. “I told him this weekend—he’s—”

“You don’t need to explain anything,” Blue said softly. “I can’t believe we assumed—”

“You were right to assume, Blue. How were you supposed to guess this?”

“I should have guessed,” Gansey said. He sounded far away. “Ronan texting me like that. He would never text me like that about getting engaged.”

Adam sucked in a shuddering breath and pulled his hands away from his face. He wiped his eyes that were wet and sticky with tears already. “I’ve gotta go make sure he’s okay.”

“Of course,” Gansey said. “Should I go with you?”

Adam shook his head. “Not right now. I’ll bring him back in—I think you two should talk though. I don’t really—you know him.” He was already standing up, fumbling toward the door. “Just—”

“Go, Adam,” Blue said, her hand on Gansey’s arm. “We’ll be here.”

Adam nodded, but he wasn’t sure Blue ever saw it because he started moving through the restaurant so fast. They hadn’t expected this conversation to be easy, but there was no way they could have expected a blow this hard, especially for Ronan, his dreamer.

It didn’t take long to find him. Adam rounded the side of the building to see Ronan hugging his knees to his chest, tears streaming freely down his cheeks. The new normal.

Adam found a place in the grass by his side and pulled him in. Ronan didn’t unravel, but he did lean into him, sniffling horribly as Adam rested his head on top of Ronan’s.

“We could’ve just lied, y’know?” Ronan choked out after a moment. “I mean—fuck, why don’t we get that? Why can’t I marry you?”

Adam closed his eyes, his own tears rolling out beneath his lashes and onto Ronan’s buzzed hair. It was a little longer now than he liked it—another thing forgotten to the new routine.

“You could,” Adam offered.

Ronan scoffed. “Not like this.”

“You might not have a choice,” Adam said with a little chuckle. It was a sad, hollow sound.

“Our wedding would end up like this. Fuck, _everything_ keeps ending up like this.”

Ronan was right. It would be a wedding full of crying and sadness and anger, the opposite of what Blue and Gansey’s would be. The opposite of what a wedding _should_ be.

“I’d do it though,” Adam said, staring at a collection of litter that had accumulated at the corner of the chain link fence at the edge of the next lot. “I’d marry you even if it was like this.”

“No,” Ronan hissed. “We’ll do it right. When you’re better.”

But he was dying. Ronan had said it himself.

“Okay,” Adam said, kissing the crown of Ronan’s head. “When I’m better.”

Ronan leaned away from him and wiped his eyes. “I’m so sick of crying.”

“Me too,” Adam said, following suit. “It’s still new though. Once I start with treatment and we get into a new schedule, it’ll be less…this.”

“You mean this will become normal,” Ronan said.

Ronan seldom looked defeated, but he did now. He looked less like himself and more like Noah had, and Adam had to fight the urge to reach out and touch him to make sure he was real and living.

“I mean it won’t seem so insurmountable,” Adam clarified. “My care team is really great. They deal with cancer patients all day and it’s really not so bad of a prognosis in their eyes. Statistics are always improving.”

“I guess we should go back in, huh,” Ronan said, ignoring him. “Deal with Gansey and Blue having mental breakdown or some shit.”

Adam sighed. “This is what we’re going to be doing now, giving people bad news.”

“Who else do we gotta tell? Let Blue tell the psychics, I’m not going over there.”

Adam knew who else he had to tell. He looked at the ground, trying to imagine how they would react. His mother would probably shake her head disapprovingly and his father would probably tell him to forget about getting help with medical bills.

“My parents,” he finally said.

Ronan clenched his jaw. “Call them, don’t go back there.”

“I’d rather—”

“I would rather you didn’t,” Ronan said in a warning tone, his gaze turning sharp on him.

Adam frowned. “They deserve to know.”

Ronan’s shoulders hunched. “A phone call is enough, Parrish. It’s more than they would give you.”

He knew Ronan was right, but he still…they were still family, even if he didn’t want them to be. It felt right to tell them in person. But as he looked at Ronan, whose eyes were closed like he was steeling himself for the trip, and he wasn’t so sure anymore. Because Ronan was Ronan—he would stand beside him through any trial, no matter how much he hated it. Ronan would go in the trailer with him, somehow refrain from punching his father, and stand there while his parents made him feel like a burden.

Adam was done making Ronan suffer. He stood up and held out his hand to help him up.

“I’ll call them. If it goes to voicemail, I’ll leave it in a voicemail. This is about you and me now,” he said.

Ronan looked up at him, momentarily confused.

Adam smiled at him, extending his hand a little further. “Come on.”

“You…really?”

He nodded. “Really. I don’t want to make things difficult for you anymore. Not when they don’t need to be.”

Ronan took his hand and stood up, and Adam couldn’t help but put his arms around him. He didn’t know what he’d done to deserve such a perfect, hot, wonderful boyfriend.

“Don’t get sappy on me, Parrish,” Ronan said, but he gave him a hug.

Adam pulled back to look at him. “You sure this is okay? I can talk to Gansey and Blue.”

“And leave you to those idiots? No way.” Ronan kissed his forehead and then took his hand and they headed back inside Nino’s. He only looked slightly puffy around the eyes.

Gansey looked incredibly uncomfortable as they approached, and it was clear he’d been doing plenty of crying himself. Even Blue had to wipe her eyes as they sat down.

“Let me know how I can help,” Gansey said. “I’m so sorry. I don’t—I’m afraid even I don’t know what to say in this situation.”

“You can eat pizza,” Ronan offered, pulling a slice from the pie. “Then we don’t have to hear you talk.”

They all ignored the roughness of Ronan’s voice and laughed. Adam took a slice of pizza for himself and tried to think of something to say. He wasn’t sure what would help people like Gansey and Blue—people like them.

“We’ve been going to Lindenmere,” he offered after everyone had their pizza. “Every day, for most of the week. I’d call it going for treatment.”

“A splendid idea,” Gansey said, his eyes still glistening with tears.

“Hopefully,” Adam said, taking a bite of pizza. “I go back to school—”

“Harvard,” Ronan interrupted, muffled with pizza.

Adam rolled his eyes. “I go back to school on Monday and get a scan, then I’m scheduled for surgery.”

“Surgery?” Blue asked.

Adam brought a hand to his chest, fingers fluttering over his burn mark that was still red but no longer inflamed or hot to the touch. “There are some tumors in my lymph nodes. But the hope is that Lindenmere will have cleared everything out.” He looked to Ronan, who nodded once.

“That’s the idea,” Ronan said.

“And then what will you do?” Blue asked, but Adam could hear the real question: _and what if it doesn’t work?_

“I’m going to finish out my semester and go from there. If that’s not possible, I have a care team in Cambridge working with the school—”

“Harvard,” Ronan clarified, again.

“—to make sure there aren’t any penalties, and that I can go back when I’m ready.”

“Oh Adam.” Gansey wiped his eyes yet again, knocking his glasses off kilter in the process. “We’ll fight this. There are all kinds of stories about fabled healers and healing properties. We could look into them and find something there.”

Adam shook his head. “I appreciate that, but I trust Lindenmere. That’s about all the magic I’m prepared to introduce to this.”

“Would a reading help?” Blue asked. She was fussing with one of the many rings on her hand.

Adam shook his head. “I don’t want a reading to dictate how I feel about this.”

“Okay,” Blue said with a nod. “That makes a lot of sense.”

“Let’s stop talking about it,” Adam suggested. “I’m happy to answer any questions you have, but I’d also like to hear more about your traveling. Mostly about anywhere warmer than here. In Cambridge we’re excited about being above freezing.”

Gansey was hesitant at first, but then began his perfect storytelling in a jungle clearing in Peru, where mountain mist breathed life itself. He told of jaguar prints still warm in the mud, about Blue nearly hitting a boa in the face with her own face. Itchy vines, tarantulas, flowers that glowed under the moon. Adam could close his eyes and feel the sticky heat.

By the end of the story only a few bits of pizza crust remained on the table, and Blue was starting to look drowsy. They said their goodbyes ( _“just for now, Adam,”_ said Gansey) and walked across the crumbling asphalt parking lot together until they split off to their cars. Adam watched Gansey link hands with Blue once they were in the Pig, and he could see the relief in her body as she leaned her head to rest against his shoulder, a universal sign for _thank god that isn’t us._

Adam chewed the inside of his cheek as he climbed into the BMW, hoping Ronan hadn’t noticed.

“Home?” Ronan asked once he started the car.

Adam turned his gaze out the window. “Let’s just drive for a while.”

“You read my mind,” Ronan said as he sped out onto the street like they still had so much time. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> don't @ me for the number of forehead/head kisses in this chapter lmao


	12. Chapter 12

Ronan had never gone with his mother to the hospital. In fact, he never remembered taking her to a hospital at all, though they must have. Declan must have. He had thought he would be ready to take Adam, because he’d seen enough movies and doctor tv shows to have a general idea of what they looked like and the sterile chaos that reigned inside.

The hospital didn’t look like a hospital. It was a sleek building made of blue glass windows and just enough brick accents to remind the viewer that it was indeed a building and not a space ship. The design was modern and classy, sophisticated and well-funded with the fat pockets of Harvard doctors, or so Ronan assumed as he led a sickly Adam inside.

Fincher or Fletcher or whatever the hell his name was found out about Adam’s cancer Sunday night when Adam nearly passed out driving the bike home. Ronan had demanded he not take the bike and just let himself be driven, but Adam had thrown such a fit about it he couldn’t force it on him. So Adam had left from Declan’s on the goddamned bike, and by the time he got to Harvard he was almost unconscious. No more bike—Ronan had made sure of that when he drove up the next day and dismantled the dream engine and tossed it in a dumpster with Finster’s help.

Of course, because Falstaff knew about Adam’s cancer, he hadn’t said a word of protest when Ronan showed up. Adam had been at class on a strict pre-PET scan diet that denied him every food that Harvard kids depended on for survival. No carbs, no candy, no coffee. No fruit, no dairy (or non-dairy substitutes), and no cereal. Flasher said he’d eaten tofu for breakfast. Tofu.

Worse, he still had to take his prescriptions with just water to wash it down.

_I feel like shit_ , Adam had texted.

_we’ll get milkshakes and coffee when you’re done,_ Ronan had replied.

Even knowing Adam didn’t feel well hadn’t prepared him for the sight when he walked through the door. Whatever life he’d regained in Henrietta was sucked from him, his eyes were hollow and his skin sickly pale. He was cold all over, shaking and frail.

Cancer was fucking torture. Adam wasn’t allowed to eat anything after his tofu breakfast and by the time Ronan had him loaded in the BMW he was sucking down water as a meal replacement. The care team listened patiently to Ronan’s concerns once they were in the hospital, but their smiles were plastered on. Only Adam got the real, sympathetic ones. Like when they stuck a needle in his arm attached to plastic tubing and a little port that dangled by his wrist.

“You’ll need to change into a hospital gown,” one of the nurses instructed once it was done. “You can keep your sweats on if you’d like, and we’ll bring you extra blankets to keep you warm.”

“Can you please bring him some fucking water?” Ronan asked. “He needs water.”

The nurse grimaced. She didn’t look at Ronan when she responded that she would find him a cup of water.

“You can’t swear at them,” Adam said through blue lips. He sat up in his bed and pulled off his shirt, wincing when his skin hit cold air. Ronan helped him into the gown. He took off his jacket and put it around Adam’s shoulders, and once he was sitting down he put Adam’s coat over his front to trap in as much warmth as possible.

“You okay?” Ronan asked, tucking him in.

Of course he wasn’t, but Adam nodded quickly. “I should’ve eaten more.”

“Damn right,” Ronan muttered.

They waited twenty minutes in the exam room before a doctor showed up. Ronan wasn’t actually sure the man was a doctor, but he looked enough like one that he supposed it didn’t matter. They spoke in a language Ronan couldn’t understand—something about tracers and half lives and shit. Adam nodded every so often and didn’t so much as stare when the doctor produced the biggest fucking syringe he’d ever seen. It looked like something from a movie that a mad scientist would have in his goddamn lab. The cylinder looked the same thickness as Adam’s wrist, all metal so he couldn’t even see what was going to be injected into his boyfriend.

“What the hell is that?” Ronan asked, glaring at the syringe. He’d refrained from using ‘fuck,’ but Adam didn’t look pleased.

“It’s the tracer,” Adam said, his voice worn. “It’s a radioactive substance that gathers around where the cancer is so you can see it on the scan.”

“Oh, radioactive. Great.”

“It’s a very small amount of radiation,” the doctor said encouragingly. “But you may feel lethargic for a few hours.” 

The doctor attached the mad scientist syringe to the port in Adam’s arm and started squeezing radioactive juice through the plastic tubing and into his bloodstream. Adam started shaking even harder, and his eyes squeezed shut. Ronan’s heart was in his throat as he reached over and rested his hand on his boyfriend’s shoulder, thumbing there with as much comfort as he could muster.

“It’s cold,” Adam said feebly.

“I’m here,” Ronan said, because he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

The doctor was quiet as he pushed the rest of the tracer into Adam’s blood, but when he was finished, he gave Adam’s arm a little tap. “All done. We’ll get you more blankets—just hang tight. We’ll do your scan in about half an hour once the tracer has settled.”

He smiled a too-caring smile when Adam nodded, and pulled the port from Adam’s arm. A small cotton swab and a piece of medical tape stopped the bleeding, then the doctor was focused on writing things on Adam’s charts while Ronan took his freezing hand.

“I’m glad you’re here this time,” Adam said as Ronan brought the back of Adam’s palm to his mouth and exhaled to warm it up. He couldn’t imagine Adam doing this alone without knowing what was coming. Ronan was scared and he wasn’t even getting injected with radioactive tracer juice.

“Yeah, you’d have died of thirst and hypothermia by now,” he murmured against Adam’s skin.

Adam smiled, closing his eyes. His cheeks drained of color after a few moments, tipping Ronan off to the lethargy without him saying a word.

“Is this how it felt last time?” he asked, thumbing Adam’s still-cold hand.

Adam nodded, then turned his face away. “I think…I think it also doesn’t react well with whatever I have from Cabeswater and Lindenmere. The…” He took a deep breath, but it was a fast and aggressive one, almost like a gasp but something more rotten. “My ability to feel energy. I assume it’s the radiation knocking everything off balance, but it makes me feel dizzy.”

“Keep your eyes closed, then,” Ronan said with a squeeze of his hand.

He thought of his mother, how he used to lie with his head in her lap when he had a fever. How she would sing to him in perfect notes and harmonies. The way her soft hair tickled his cheek when she leaned to grab another cold rag for his forehead.

He doubted Adam had ever had any comfort in his sickness. In fact, he knew he hadn’t. Adam never complained about being sick, not even about his cancer. But before all of this, it just wasn’t part of his life to even think to complain. Why complain when no one cared and no one would listen? How many nights had Adam gone to sleep burning with fever without so much as a look of sympathy?

It wasn’t fair.

“Does it hurt?” Ronan asked.

Adam shook his head. “Just feels cold all over. And feels like I’m going—like I’m falling.”

For all he was as a dreamer king, Ronan was powerless here. He couldn’t dream things that stopped this, that stopped Adam’s discomfort.

“What if I crawl in there with you? Will that warm you up?” No one had ever really described Ronan as warm. Not even Adam, though they did a lot of cuddling. Something about his pale body and dark clothing never translated to being cozy.

“C’mon,” Adam whispered, but he didn’t open his eyes.

The nurse found them like that, Ronan curled around Adam in his hospital bed. She frowned, and the look in her eyes said she clearly didn’t think a PET scan warranted such behavior, but she didn’t say anything as she handed over the blankets. Ronan didn’t thank her, because Adam’s water was forgotten once again. She didn’t look like she wanted to be thanked, either.

“Can I go to Declan’s with you after this?” Adam asked once Ronan had covered him completely with a blanket.

“Yeah,” Ronan replied, rubbing Adam’s back. “We’ll get you a nice warm bath.”

Adam didn’t respond and he knew it was because going to Declan’s meant he would skip class tomorrow, and Adam Parrish didn’t skip class unless Robert Parrish had beaten the shit out of him.

Ronan hadn’t bothered to check up on Robert’s condition. He hoped it was worse than when he’d left him in the mud.

The doctor came in not long after the blanket arrived, and his smile was also slightly scolding somehow, so Ronan glared at him.

“Adam,” the doctor said, “are you ready?”

Adam stilled against Ronan’s chest. “Yeah.”

Ronan kept the blanket draped around Adam’s shoulders as they walked down the hall with the doctor. He could feel his dizziness, and stopped a few times to readjust the coats bunched up in his other arm to give Adam some time to get his bearings. If the doctor noticed, he didn’t say anything.

“I’m afraid this is as far as you can go, Ronan,” the doctor said when they reached a small enclave with a door plastered in yellow warning signs. He hated the way his name sounded in this man’s mouth.

“You gonna be good?” Ronan asked, turning to Adam.

Adam nodded, but his eyes were unfocused.

The doctor smiled. “We’ll have you out in about thirty minutes, and then we’ll go over the results with Dr. Schafer, okay?”

Ronan ignored him and pressed a kiss to Adam’s cheek. “I’ll be right out here, yeah? You’ve got this.”

He wondered if Adam had been this way the first time. If he’d looked so much like a zombie. Adam just nodded, then left his side and shuffled through the doorway with the doctor while Ronan stayed in place.

It would all be worth it if Lindenmere worked, he told himself.

He wondered if his hesitancy to believe that a magic forest could cure cancer would make it so it couldn’t. He knew that was probably why Lindenmere made him stay away while it worked.

He hadn’t told Adam he doubted. He wasn’t sure Adam believed it either, but speaking the words aloud could very well have broken what little hope Adam clung to. The trees had barely been able to help Gansey, and a part of Ronan felt sick every time he saw him, because he wasn’t sure the boy he was looking at was a complete version.

Maybe his doubt had started much earlier than this.

Ronan held Adam’s coat to his chest and found a vinyl seat in a hallway that was unoccupied. It didn’t seem designed for actually sitting—all of his limbs dangled from it at various angles that he tried to keep from tripping nurses.

A young woman in a mask walked by him dragging along an IV pole. It took him a moment of staring to realize why she looked so strange to him, but he realized it was because she didn’t have eyebrows or eyelashes or any hair in general. A pink scarf was tied around her head and her eyes were glazed as she trudged along in hospital slippers. She didn’t seem to be going anywhere with any purpose, just walking.

He looked away before her sluggish eyes could catch him watching.

_Please don’t let that be Adam_ , he prayed. _I’ll do whatever you want._

Declan warned him against bargaining with God. Ronan could feel the shame prickling under his skin as he put his head in his hands. He couldn’t think about Declan too much or the guilt collected in the back of his throat because his brother had done so much more for him and Matthew than he could ever do for Adam, and he’d been making Declan’s life hell since their father died.

Every time he called and asked if he could visit, he expected Declan to tell him no, to say enough is enough. Instead the guest room bed as always made up, the couch always had pillows, and the fridge was always stocked. Declan didn’t always smile, but he sure as hell didn’t cry, and Ronan had been doing plenty of that lately.

He couldn’t imagine Adam with his dusty brown hair missing, with no blond eyelashes to dance over his freckles, with no eyebrows to furrow. He didn’t want Adam to look like a corpse—his skin wouldn’t be smooth like the girl who had just walked by, his would be void of any color but grey. Maybe his blood would turn grey too, maybe his organs.

He thought about calling Declan, or maybe even Gansey, just to hear someone talk who wasn’t talking about cancer. But Gansey would start driving to meet them, and Adam had already said he didn’t want to see him or Blue until they got the PET scan looked at.

So Ronan paced the hallways of the medical center, making sure to circle back to where he’d left Adam just in case he finished up early. He doubted that—nothing ever got finished early in a place where half the patients were being tortured to death by mutated cells.

The bald girl was not the only bald person he saw. Several of them shot him cheerful smiles, and a guy with a tube attached to his nose even gave him a thumbs up. He didn’t realize why until he remembered his head was shaved. They thought he was one of them. Past the stage of hair loss, on the road to normalcy.

He stopped pacing after that and decided to sit against the wall outside of the doorway where Adam had gone. Nurses cast him disapproving looks, but didn’t say anything. He decided he hated hospitals. Or medical centers, or whatever the fuck this place was.

When the door finally opened and Adam came shuffling out, Ronan scrambled up from the floor. Adam blinked in surprise, but then smiled.

“Hope you weren’t sitting there the whole time,” Adam chuckled, but he sounded weaker than before—if that was even possible.

“I walked around,” Ronan said, taking Adam’s arm. “Let’s get you back to your room.”

“Actually,” the doctor said, appearing in the doorway. “Dr. Schafer would like to see you in her office to go over results.”

“That fast?” Adam asked, cocking a brow. “Last time it took a few days.”

“She said you have a surgery scheduled tomorrow,” the doctor replied. “Can’t have surgery if you don’t have scan results.”

“Can’t he get something to eat first? Five seconds to sit down and not have someone fucking telling him shit about cancer?” Ronan hissed. Adam still had his hair and eyelashes, he wasn’t on his deathbed, he was dying but not like the wisps he’d seen in the halls.

“Ronan,” Adam said softly.

The doctor put on a patient smile Ronan hated more than his fake one. “I’ll let her know you’ll be a half an hour late, then. Go get something to eat. I’ve explained—”

“Great,” Ronan interrupted, setting Adam’s coat over his shoulders.

“Can I change first?” Adam asked. He turned to the doctor with an uneasy smile. “Thank you for your help.”

Lunch was overpriced oatmeal and a housemade ginger ale for Adam at a swanky café up the street. Ronan ate overpriced pancakes with blueberry syrup, but didn’t eat much of them. Instead he watched Adam to make sure _he_ was eating. Each bite he took brought out a grimace, but by the time the oatmeal was gone, he looked a little better.

“No more tofu for breakfast,” Ronan warned. “Next time we’ll get you a decent fucking meal.”

Adam nodded. “Well, hopefully there is no next time.”

Ronan’s heart lurched. “Yeah.”

Adam sipped on his ginger ale as they walked back to the medical center and navigated up to Dr. Schafer’s office. Ronan read through the email on Adam’s phone about who would be conducting his surgery tomorrow, and he was pretty sure every kind of ologist on the planet was involved. It didn’t seem like enough doctors graduated med school to fill up care teams for all of the people who had cancer.

Ronan’s only procedure at a hospital was to sew up his arms after night terrors clawed them to pieces, and the line of logic was easy to follow. His arms had been shredded and gushing blood everywhere, so they needed cleaning and emergency stitching, otherwise he would bleed out and die.

Adam was just…Adam. All of his trauma was internal and unseen, and the surgery was scheduled through an email chain like it as a business meeting. Adam would just show up and then in an hour someone would be digging tumors from his lungs.

“Dr. Schafer is really nice,” Adam explained as they got off of the elevator. “I’d appreciate it if you be nice to her. I know this is stressful for you, but she’s trying to help.”

Ronan felt the sting of insult, even though he knew Adam hadn’t meant it like that. Probably. He wasn’t trying to be difficult, he was trying to make sure Adam got the care and attention he deserved, not made to starve and sit through a meeting dehydrated except for radioactive tracers in his bloodstream.

They arrived at a door made of laminate that had a thin handle featured on every single modern office door since modern was invented as a style. A small nameplate read _Dr. Andrielle Schafer_.

Adam knocked, and they both heard a quiet ‘come in’ from the other side of the door. When he moved to open it, Ronan stopped him with a touch to the arm.

“Whatever happens in there, we’ll figure it out,” Ronan said, the same way stupid people did in movies when they had no idea what they were getting into.

“I know,” Adam murmured. He leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, so Ronan was blushing red when he opened the door.

Dr. Schafer was not what Ronan had expected. For some reason the image in his brain was of a mousy older lady with thick glasses and thin fingers. But Dr. Schafer looked young, with bright pink lipstick that popped against her dark skin. Her eyebrows looked like they had been photoshopped on from a beauty magazine, and her skin glowed. Her demeanor was sunshine, warmth, lazy vacation days by the beach. Warm sand for cold toes to dig into, just enough breeze to keep the sun from frying frail skin.

“Adam—and Ronan, I presume?” Dr. Schafer stood from her chair and walked over to shake Adam’s hand. Ronan hesitated for a long moment when she faced him, but finally extended his. She smiled and shook it, and her smile was genuine.

“How did the scan go?” Dr. Schafer asked.

“Fi—”

“Fucking horrible,” Ronan cut in.

“Fucking horrible, huh,” Dr. Schafer said with a smirk. “I always knew Adam wasn’t giving me the full story.”

Ronan grinned. Validation was an absurdly empowering thing. “They wouldn’t give him water. They wanted him to come right up here when he hadn’t eaten anything since this morning. Fucking unreal.” He leaned back in his chair, folding his arms over his chest.

Dr. Schafer cocked a brow. “That doesn’t sound good. I hope you both got some food.”

“We did, thank you,” Adam replied hurriedly, his cheeks slightly pink. “How did the scan look?”

Dr. Schafer smiled again. “Always down to business, Mr. Parrish.” She turned to her computer and started tapping on the keyboard. “Now, I’m required to ask: are you consenting that the personal health information I’m going to release to you is also going to be released to Mr.--?”

“Lynch,” Ronan said.

He noticed her try to hide a look of shock. “Mr. Lynch?”

“Yes.” Adam looked over at him and took his hand. Ronan gave a little squeeze, glad for the comfort. Adam’s hands finally felt warm again.

“In that case, let’s dig in.”

Dr. Schafer turned her monitor toward them. Several images appeared on the screen: Adam’s lungs from a top view in black and white and a version made up in purple, red, and green. Then a picture of Adam’s upper half, his arms extended over his head, black dots of varying sizes dyeing the skeleton. Ronan didn’t like that view—it didn’t seem possible that all of that stuff was just sitting there in a chair beside him, that he called it Adam Parrish and was in love with it.

Dr. Schafer clicked something on the screen and the torso view turned from black and white to grey, white, pink and red, like a black and white photo held up to the sun. Fiery embers littered Adam’s right lung, and a few small specks of sun were gathered by his trachea.

“What does that mean?” Ronan asked, but Adam was already looking down at the desk.

“These yellow and orange dots here are clusters of cancer cells,” Dr. Schafer explained, brushing her finger over the star map that made up Adam’s right lung. “And these—” she pointed to the larger dots, “are tumors near the lymph nodes.”

“They’re bigger,” Adam said. “They’re bigger than last time.”

“They appear bigger in this scan, yes, but remember that these tests aren’t always perfect. There are many factors that can affect them. But this does mean that after surgery tomorrow we’ll start into the regimen we talked about.”

Adam swallowed hard.

“What regimen?” Ronan asked, trying to remain calm.

Lindenmere failed them. Magic hadn’t worked. Maye it was his fault.

“After we remove the larger tumors I just pointed out, we’ll start into an aggressive cycle of concurrent chemo and radiation therapies over a period of three months. After talking with Dr. Bah—”

“Who’s Dr. Bah?” Ronan asked, because he didn’t think Adam was listening anymore. Someone had to know the plan. Usually that person was never Ronan, but it was now.

“Dr. Bah is Adam’s radiation oncologist,” Dr. Schafer explained. “After speaking with him, he’s determined that this aggressive treatment method will be the best chance to eliminate the cancer after surgery.”

Ronan nodded as though he understood any of this. “And…you said concurrent treatments? What does that mean—like, I know what concurrent means. But how often?”

Dr. Schafer smiled gently at him, and he didn’t like the shift. “Once every two weeks. So by June there’s a possibility you’ll be cancer free, Adam.”

“Or dead,” Adam replied flatly.

“Don’t fucking say that,” Ronan cut.

“The likelihood of being cancer free is forty percent,” Dr. Schafer said, folding her hands on the desk.

Adam looked up. “And what are the chances I don’t make it to June?”

Dr. Schafer’s expression didn’t change. “Roughly one third of a chance you won’t make it to the end of treatment.”

Ronan felt the bile crawl up his throat. Sunshine was still filtering through the office windows, but the warm light had turned grey. Of course it had been stupid to think that Lindenmere would work, but they’d been saved by it so often that Ronan couldn’t understand why it _wouldn’t_ work. Lindenmere loved Adam as much as he did, and yet things had only gotten worse. Why? _How?_

“So I’ll be done with classes then,” Adam said.

Dr. Schafer shrugged. “That’s up to you. Treatments would be right after each other, every two weeks. We can schedule appointments on Fridays after classes to give you recovery time, but stress doesn’t tend to help in healing.”

“I’ll drive up,” Ronan said, because he knew Adam would never back down from Harvard unless he really as dying.

“And what about the team in DC? Does Dr. Bah think they’ll be able to do a good enough job?” Adam asked, squeezing his hand.

Dr. Schafer nodded. “I did speak to him about that. He felt your last treatment there went well, so I think that would be a good match as your treatment center. And you can always consult us with questions.”

“Adam—”

Adam looked at him with eyes so heavy with despair that Ronan felt himself leaning away from him. “I’m not going back to school, Ronan,” he said quietly. “Might as well call it what it is. I just want to be home.”

He fought not to cry in front of Dr. Schafer, but tears were dangerously close to spilling. “Yeah,” he choked out. “We’ll get you home.”

Adam nodded once.

“And it’s Harvard,” Ronan added weakly. “Not school, Harvard.”


	13. Chapter 13

A month later, a phone rang out through an empty office in Harvard’s medical center, well after midnight. It went to voicemail.

“You’ve reached the voicemail box of Dr. Andrielle Schafer,” a computerized voice said to the empty room. “If you are calling about a medical emergency, please hang up and dial 911. Otherwise please remain on the line and leave your message after the tone.”

A long beep.

“Hey, uh, Dr. Schafer? It’s Ronan Lynch,” a panicked voice said. “I’m—I’ve got Adam in the car with me and we’re going to the emergency room.” There was a sound of a car accelerating. “He’s got—He’s gonna be okay right? He’s got a fever and we were eating dinner and something fell out of his mouth on his plate and he just started freaking—” There was the sound of the phone rustling against Ronan’s cheek. His voice changed, softer. “Hey babe. Go back to sleep, we’re going to the hospital—” Back to panic. “His mouth is coming out. Fuck—all the skin in his mouth is just fucking coming out. Call me back. I’m also gonna call your cell, and Dr. Bah, and anyone the fuck—”

The voicemail automatically disconnected.

* * *

Two weeks later, Adam sat in a field, resting up against one of Niall’s dream cows. She slept peacefully beneath him, and when he rested his good ear against her side he could hear the slow beat of her heart and the grunts and groans of her stomachs and organs.

Chemo and radiation were not going well. They were going so poorly, in fact, that Adam was also on steroids to combat the adverse effects the treatments were having on his body. He’s lost another ten pounds that he didn’t have to spare, and when he looked in the mirror now he looked closer and closer to the way Noah had in the wrong light. Being fed through IVs for almost a week did that to someone.

The skin in his mouth had decided that it no longer wanted to be part of him two days after a particularly tough treatment. So as he had been eating a delicious pasta dish Ronan had made, the insides of his cheeks started sloughing off, then the skin behind his lips, then the roof of his mouth. He’d passed out after the cheeks though, and when he’d woken up it was in a hospital room near Richmond and it had felt like someone dumped gasoline in his mouth and lit it on fire. Even with morphine he could hardly smile without blinding pain.

The worst part wasn’t even the pain, it was seeing Ronan’s eyes dead in his skull, his hands trembling at all hours, the way he buried his face in Adam’s concave stomach when he thought he was sleeping and cried into the blankets. The way Ronan pretended not to notice that patches of Adam’s hair were all over the pillows when they woke up every morning, the way Adam came out of the bath with less eyelashes and less eyebrow hair than when he’d gone in. The way he was slowly needing Ronan’s help more and more often just to walk around the house.

“If you cut my head, I’m going to punch you,” Adam warned.

“Like you could, weak ass,” Ronan returned with a grin. “Lie back.”

Adam laid back against the belly of the cow, smiling each time her middle rose and fell. The buzz of the razor permeated his hearing, and he closed his eyes.

He’d held onto his hair as long as he could stand, for Ronan. But with most of it missing from the back now, it looked a little too ridiculous to keep.

The sun warmed his ghostly pale skin, and Adam could feel the odd way his ribs stuck into the cow, and the way her ribs xylophoned up his vertebrae.

He never thought dying would feel like this: warm and loved and cared for.

“Is Gansey coming over tonight?” Adam asked. He had to mumble now—opening his mouth too wide tore the new tissue he’d grown.

Ronan continued buzzing his head. “Don’t know. If he does, he’s going to want to start planning your birthday party.”

July felt so far away, and Adam didn’t really like parties, but he knew the party was more for his friends and for Ronan. Gansey was so beside himself with grief all the time that it was hard to hang out with him when Blue wasn’t there to snap him out of it. But currently she was on a trip with her mom and Mr. Gray to go to some moon beach or something. She’d sent them a postcard.

“I told him already that he can do whatever he wants. Don’t know who he’s gonna invite though, or how they’re all gonna get through the security system.”

“Same way we do,” Ronan said, bringing the trimmer to his forehead again.

“Right.” Adam had already forgotten. Ronan had manifested a living mirage of dense trees and fenceline to drive through when they went for appointments now. Adam couldn’t bear to feel the guilt and Ronan couldn’t relive Adam sitting at the dinner table with a piece of his cheek hanging out of his mouth.

“Sit up,” Ronan instructed.

Adam sat up, pulling the throw blanket a little tighter around him. He was always cold now, even in the hot Henrietta sun of late spring.

The trimmer started at the back of his head. It felt like being licked by a tiger, big sandpaper-y swipes. Dream trimmers had to be special somehow, Adam supposed. Aside from eating his hair.

“Do you think it’ll be something like this?” Ronan asked absently as he continued shaving.

“What will be like this?”

“You know. Heaven and all that.”

Death was never far away in conversation now. They joked about it, had lengthy discussions on the afterlife and how to get there. Adam even went to Mass now, but they sat far enough back in the pews that he could rest against Ronan’s shoulder and sleep when he got too tired. Conservative Catholics had little to say about gayness when it was so apparent Adam was a boy already being punished for his sins. Ronan said God didn’t punish people like that, not really. That He’d killed his own son to make sure no one else had to be punished again.

“I think I’ll have a six pack and nice arms in heaven,” Adam hummed, tipping his head forward to let Ronan shave away the hair at his nape. “But the setting? I think so. Probably more mountains in mine, I hope.”

“And what about me? Don’t I get a say?”

“What do you want? I’ll already be there, what more do you need?” Adam cracked.

Ronan’s trimmer hesitated.

“That’s—I didn’t mean—”

“I know,” Ronan said quietly, resuming the shave.

Adam felt lips press to his head, right to the skin. It was strange, but he knew he’d have to be used to it now. He didn’t like Ronan kissing him on the lips anymore, they were so chapped and scarred up from being worried open with his teeth that he was afraid Ronan’s last memory of him would be how disgusting his mouth felt against his own.

Ronan clicked the trimmers off and Adam leaned back to look up at him.

“Whoever gets there first gets to pick the setting. I promise I’ll put some cows and shit for you,” Adam said, correcting himself.

“And I’ll give you a stupid library to spend your time in when you get tired of me,” Ronan said, smiling down at him.

The dream trimmers ate hair because Ronan had read an article that apparently said seeing your piled up hair made it more traumatic to lose it. Adam was just grateful he didn’t have itchy chunks of hair all over his shoulders.

“Come over here on my side and cuddle with me,” Adam demanded.

Ronan didn’t hesitate. His fingers didn’t leave the cow as he walked around her flank, gentle and sure. He sat down next to Adam and pulled him to his chest like he was made of glass. That was one of the worst parts about how weak treatment made him: Adam hated that people felt the need to be so careful with him, but when he wasn’t careful with himself it hurt like hell.

“I’m glad I came home,” he said, for the thousandth time.

“I’m very glad you came home,” Ronan murmured, also for the thousandth time.

Adam burst out laughing, unable to contain it. His right lung ached horribly, but the feeling of Ronan’s slightly sweaty cheek resting on his newly bald head was such a new sensation that he couldn’t help but laugh at it. Hair was so thoughtless, but not having any was a bizarre feeling.

“What are you laughing at?” Ronan asked, but he was laughing too. “What?”

“My head,” Adam said, tears leaking from his eyes—happy tears. “Your cheek is all damp and I can feel it.”

“Your head is all fuckin’ egg-y, so don’t start shit about my cheek being sweaty!”

They laughed together in the field, devolving into giggling when their stomachs hurt from it. When Adam pulled out his phone and saw his face he started laughing harder, because a big shiny-headed Martian wearing his t-shirt was looking back at him and laughing too.

“Can I please text a picture to Gansey?” Adam asked between giggles. “Oh god, he’ll lose his mind.”

“He’ll start goddamn crying,” Ronan groaned, bursting into laughter again when he saw Adam putting an angel filter on his face. He leaned in to make a face in the camera, but the halo swapped places to be over his head, devil horns over Adam’s.

“Bullshit,” Ronan said, then realized Adam was recording. “Parrish!”

Adam laughed, saving the video before sending it to Gansey, Fletcher, and the Crying Club. He tucked his face into Ronan’s neck, letting his laughter slow as a balmy late-spring breeze sang over them.

His fingers moved over the front of Ronan’s tank top and he wished he would have spent more time in bed with him, before. They should have gone to a hotel over winter break, snuck out of the house and fooled around as much as they wanted.

Instead Ronan got hotter and Adam’s body got less and less interested at the prospect of any physical activity whatsoever. Ronan tossed bales of hay with one arm and Adam had to get help standing up. Ronan’s lips looked more kissable than ever and Adam’s were rotting off of his face.

“You still love me even though I don’t have any hair?” Adam asked, still lazily exploring Ronan’s chest with a wandering finger.

“Still love you,” Ronan said drowsily.

“Sleepy?” Adam purred.

“Sleepy.” Ronan kissed his head again and they both let out little laughs once more.

At home while Ronan cooked dinner, Adam grieved in the bathroom mirror. Without his hair, his head looked misshapen. Without his eyebrows he looked like an abandoned drawing of a person. When he wiped his eyes, the sides of his palms were covered in eyelashes. His arms were too smooth, and his dick looked prepubescent. His hips stuck from his body, his ribs made ridges in his skin, and he could see the outlines of his skull framing his sunken eyes. His collarbones looked like they could be plucked from his body if he tugged them hard enough, and when he moved he could see his tendons stretch and contract around the plastic port stuck into his chest where he got his chemo drugs injected.

He stared into the small collection of water in the bowl of the sink and slowed his breathing until he felt himself pull away from his body just enough.

When he looked up at the mirror again, a summery, happy version of himself looked back. This Adam was taller, with broad shoulders and amazing arms, tan skin and muscle in all the right places. When he smiled it was bright white instead of Adam’s grey-yellow, and his lips were pink and full.

He wasn’t sure who this Adam was—whether he was a vision of what the future could have been, or if it was just his manifestation of what he wanted most.

“What are you looking at?” Ronan asked, but it wasn’t his Ronan. This Ronan only appeared in the mirror—he looked pretty much the same, but his eyes glowed, his grin wouldn’t leave, and he sometimes had a different fashion sense that both Adams liked very much.

“Admiring the view,” both Adams said.

“Yeah?” Ronan hooked an arm around the other Adam’s neck and yanked him sideways for a heavy kiss.

Both Adams closed their eyes, and both Adams could feel the kiss--the desire, the love in it. Both Adams braced against the bathroom counter when Ronan deepened it. When he pulled away, it was only to whisper in Adam’s ear, “Bed.” Ronan tugged at his hip, insistent. 

“I would do that here, if you wanted me to,” Ronan said, but the Ronan in the mirror was gone.

_Oh god._

Adam blinked back to the present, hurriedly pulling the drain to the sink.

“I’m sorry,” Adam said, shame burning him up.

The real Ronan leaned against the threshold with his arms crossed, watching him.

“Fuck, Ronan, I’m so sorry, I—”

“Parrish, hey,” Ronan said, coming toward him. “It’s okay. It’s alright.”

Adam couldn’t stop himself from sobbing. Naked in his bathroom and he was _sobbing_.

“Baby, I didn’t mean to scare you,” Ronan soothed, putting a blanket over his shoulders while Adam’s tears hit the sink bowl. “There’s no need to cry. You think I don’t do the same thing sometimes? That I don’t dream about you healthy?”

“I’m so sorry,” Adam sobbed, unable to say anything else. “I’m so sorry, Ronan.”

“Nothing to be sorry about,” Ronan said, kissing the back of his neck. “I’m sorry I scared you.”

Adam scried because hes wore he could feel the life returning to him when he did. When he was healthy and strong and happy in his visions he felt like maybe some of it came back with him, or maybe for a split second Ronan could see it too.

“I made you stir fry,” Ronan said, kissing down his spine. “Even put some green peppers and stuff. And a protein milkshake.”

“T-thank you,” Adam sputtered, turning around.

Ronan looked back at him, his blue eyes earnest and caring like Adam had never seen in his life.

He lifted his skeletal hands and touched Ronan’s cheeks, looking him over like he was new.

“When I die will you promise not to kill yourself?” Adam whispered.

Ronan’s eyes went wide. “What? Parrish—”

“Promise me,” he begged. “Promise you won’t kill yourself, Ronan. Promise me you’ll find someone else. No copies. No copies of me.”

“There’s no one else,” Ronan said, his voice trembling. “I don’t want anyone else.”

“Promise me,” Adam repeated.

“I promise I won’t kill myself,” Ronan said, tears welling in eyes. “But you have to promise me you aren’t giving up. You hear me, Parrish? You’re halfway through this, you’re gonna make it. Today you lost some hair, so what? I can shave my head bald if you want. I’ll shave my eyebrows off—”

“No.” Adam shook his head, tears rolling down his cheeks. He leaned forward, letting his disgusting lips graze Ronan’s brow. “I love your eyebrows.”

“I love your face, eyebrows or not,” Ronan returned.

“Now you’re making me sound like an asshole.” Adam laughed pitifully, putting his spidery arms around Ronan’s neck. “I love you. The fake you just gets to be extra flirty because I don’t look like a corpse.”

Ronan let out a snort. “I saw myself die in a church. You helped me get rid of him. You don’t look like a corpse.”

Adam let out a little yelp of surprise when Ronan dropped, his arm hooking him behind the knees, the other at his back. Suddenly Adam was in the air, entirely too light, held bridal style by his boyfriend, wearing nothing but a blanket.

“Really sexy,” Adam said, laughing. He’d laughed so much today his mouth hurt, but he didn’t mind. It always hurt, really. ”Thank you.”

Ronan kissed his nose—the closest he ever got to his lips anymore. “You’re lucky I love you, ‘cause you’re heavy as shit.”

“Keep stuffing me with stir fry and I’ll get heavier,” Adam joked.

“Counting on it.” Ronan kept their foreheads rested together, and Adam closed his eyes. Tears rolled out again, and he curled his bony fingers at Ronan’s collar.

“Parrish,” Ronan warned. “You thinking about sad shit again? When there’s stir fry on the stove?”

Adam shook his head.

“Nobody’s ever loved me like you do,” he said quietly.

Ronan carried him out of the bathroom, grabbing his impossibly soft dream robe from the door hanger as he went. He was strong enough to carry him with one arm now—that was how Adam phrased it to keep himself from thinking about the truth. “I love loving you,” Ronan said. “Because you deserve it and you always have.”

Usually Adam would find a way to argue, but this time he just smiled and let his cheeks get hot.

“I love you too,” he said, running his thumb over Ronan’s chin as he was carried down the stairs.

“I know, Parrish, “ Ronan said, carrying him into the living room to Adam’s spot on the couch where he could eat comfortably—a setup Ronan had made for him so they could watch funny movies to make meals easier. “I got you all set up. It’s movie time.”

No, Adam had never been loved like this.


	14. Chapter 14

Summer was always something beautiful in Henrietta. This year it was supposed to bring more joy than usual for Ronan, because the end of May was supposed to bring Adam home to him. Instead it went by without him noticing, and June swung in with its heat and humidity and Ronan didn’t realize it until he heard distant tornado sirens one afternoon while admiring the corn stalks in his backyard garden and thought _tornado weather usually doesn’t start up until June_.

He glanced at the house, watching for movement. Leaving Adam alone in the house always scared him, but between Chainsaw and Opal, he knew he could trust he would be warned if anything happened. There was some guilt in doing his own things like gardening and taking walks, but Adam slept so much of the day now that he was bored stiff by noon if he made himself sit inside.

He also went to church twice a week now, once for Mass and once to talk to whoever in the clergy would listen. Adam was dying. He had one treatment left, and he was still dying. Dr. Bah assured him it wasn’t as dire as it appeared, but Ronan knew Adam better than anyone, and he had never seen him like this.

And for all the death Ronan had been exposed to in his life, he still didn’t know what went into planning for it. Death certificates, funerals, calling hours, wakes. The Crying Club had stopped talking to Adam weeks ago, first blaming it on finals, then traveling home for summer, but now Ronan knew it was because they didn’t want to feel involved with a dying boy they had only met months prior. Fletcher sent Adam a letter and a box with some things he’d left behind, as well as a candy bar part of some inside joke that made Adam smile. It still sat unopened on the desk in their bedroom.

Gansey and Blue visited when they could, but Ronan could see that Blue wanted to be there less and less each time, the same way Declan did. No one liked watching someone waste away. Gansey was just too much of an idiot to do the same thing—he still thought Adam could be fixed.

The tornado sirens continued to blare their mournful tone and Ronan looked at the wall of clouds beyond. Too blue to be a real tornado, but the county was big, so maybe it was somewhere far off. The air hadn’t turned yellow, and the wind wasn’t holding its breath like it did before real tornados. Birds still sang from the safety of their branches.

Even so, Ronan wiped his hands on his jeans and headed inside. Opal sat on the floor by the couch, drawing something while chewing on a stick and talking at the same time. She was explaining her drawing to Adam in a language that wasn’t real, and Chainsaw was watching her silver crayon very carefully from her spot on the mantel.

Adam was asleep, covered in three blankets and curled against a large pillow, his face as hollow as ever. He was still losing weight even with the meal pills Ronan had dreamed. There wasn’t much left to lose now, like his body was preparing itself for easy decay or mummification or whatever bodies subconsciously thought was going to happen to them after they stopped working.

“Has he woken up?” Ronan asked Opal.

She shook her head.

Ronan shucked off his muddy boots and headed to the kitchen to wash his hands, scrubbing furiously at his skin. With an immune system as compromised as Adam’s, he could never be too careful. Even Chainsaw had started flying out an open window every ten minutes or so to poop, because Ronan had explained to her very seriously that she could kill Adam if she didn’t and the alternative was making her live outside until this was all over.

Over. Not when Adam got better. “Better” had left Ronan’s vocabulary.

Once his hands were scrubbed red, he returned to the living room and crouched by Adam’s head, gently caressing his face.

“Hey Sleepy,” he soothed. “Time for some lunch, okay?”

He kept stroking Adam’s face until his eyelids fluttered and Adam looked at him with a half-lidded gaze, eyes bloodshot.

Ronan grabbed Adam’s tumbler of water and offered him the straw. “Water, baby.”

Cracked lips finally found the end of the straw and Adam closed his eyes to drink, as if swallowing and looking were too monumental to take on at the same time.

“I’m gonna get your medicine and then we’ll try some oatmeal today, okay?” Ronan asked, running his thumb along the ridge of Adam’s skull where his eyebrow had once been. “Bet you can eat some today. I’m putting fresh strawberries in, still had some in the garden.”

“Okay,” Adam rasped. “Oatmeal.”

Ronan wasn’t sure when he had reached the point where seeing Adam like this didn’t scare the shit out of him. It still did, in a way, but he had gotten so used to it that sometimes in his darkest moments he wished it would just be over, so he didn’t have to beg Adam to do things that caused him so much pain. Sometimes he actually wished Adam would die in his sleep so at least Ronan would know he died comfortably at home instead of a sterile-smelling hospital room.

When he brought the oatmeal to Adam he ate a spoonful, then Ronan offered him water and the growing collection of pills that supposedly kept Adam alive. Some days he had to force Adam to take them by shoving the pills in his mouth one by one and dumping water until he swallowed, and on those days Ronan had to take a very long walk after he was done.

Today though, Adam took his pills and drank his water, and even ate two more spoonfuls of oatmeal before he closed his eyes and fell asleep again. Ronan carried him to the bathroom next, helping him through the more disgusting bodily functions that he didn’t bat an eye at anymore. Then he helped Adam into a warm bath and massaged his limbs to keep the bed sores from appearing.

“One more treatment tomorrow,” Ronan reminded him. “Then we’re done with this shit for good.”

“PET scan,” Adam said, his voice barely catching Ronan’s ears.

“PET scan isn’t for another two weeks. Then we find out you’re cancer free and the next week it’s your birthday. Nineteen.”

“You’re nineteen,” Adam said. Ronan could never tell if he was speaking his thoughts out loud or trying to say something important.

“Yeah man,” Ronan agreed, massaging Adam’s bony shoulder. There wasn’t really any muscle to speak of, just skin, some stringy tendons, and lots of sharp bones. “I’ll let you cheat and drink some champagne on your birthday if you want, since you’re gonna make it.”

Adam closed his eyes again. “Can’t do that with the medication.”

“I know,” Ronan replied, wishing he could lean in and kiss his temple. It was too much of a risk for his immune system though. “You just rest up, okay? Bed or couch?”

“Couch,” Adam said quickly. “I like to hear everyone.”

Gansey came over for dinner, alone. He greeted Ronan with a big hug, and Ronan hugged back. It was nice to hug someone who wasn’t so frail.

“How is he today?” Gansey asked, setting a bag of groceries on the counter.

“Slept a lot. He ate some, I gave him a bath. I tried to wake him up when you pulled in, but he’s not ready,” Ronan said with a shrug.

“That’s all right,” Gansey said, digging through the bag to pull out a sleeve of cookies. He handed them to Ronan. “See if he wants some of these. I’ll cook dinner—I practiced all week, so I promise it’s edible.”

Ronan didn’t argue, even if he’d had chicken thawing since noon. Instead he took the cookies to Adam and opened the sleeved to offer him one.

“Gansey’s here,” he said. “He brought you some cookies, babe.”

Adam nuzzled into his pillow, refusing to wake. The furrowed brow meant he was going to sleep through Gansey’s entire visit, most likely. Ronan frowned, setting the cookies on the TV tray by Adam’s water bottle.

“Need any help?” he asked as he walked back into the kitchen. Gansey was staring intently at his phone, where Ronan could see he had written entirely too many notes for what looked like a simple recipe.

“Chicken alfredo? I have some thawed chicken in the fridge,” Ronan offered.

Gansey let out a sigh of relief. “Thank god. I was just noticing that my chicken is still horribly frozen.”

Ronan rolled his eyes and opened the fridge, retrieving the pale, gelatin-like chicken from the shelf. He took his place at Gansey’s side and pulled a knife from the drawer to start cutting. He hadn’t made a meal with anyone since spring break, he realized. That felt like a lifetime ago. Making a meal with someone was such a human thing and Ronan hadn’t realized how much he missed it.

“Now this part takes forever,” Gansey explained, gesturing to the pot of water on the stovetop. “It has to boil.”

“We’ll be here all night if you keep it on the lowest setting like that, idiot,” Ronan said, reaching past him to turn the dial to the max. Flames licked at the underside of the pot, their light catching on something—

“What is this?” Ronan asked, snatching Gansey’s wrist.

“Shit—” Gansey tried feebly to tear his hand away, but it was too late. A silver band wrapped around his ring finger, simple, inexpensive…not a purchase Gansey had made.

He let go of Gansey’s wrist and Gansey clutched his hand to his chest as though Ronan had broken it.

He stared expectantly, knowing full well Gansey couldn’t take the pressure of his look. He already knew, but he was going to make Gansey say it.

“I’m engaged,” Gansey said, the words rusty in his mouth. “I forgot to take the ring off—we supposed to tell you after we heard about Adam’s prognosis and—”

“When?” Ronan asked, keeping his face blank.

“The day Adam got his head shaved, that was why I didn’t come to dinner.” Gansey swallowed hard. “I wanted to take Blue and tell you both but—it didn’t feel right. I didn’t want to overshadow the step Adam had taken or…or rub it in his face.”

“Gansey.” Ronan braced himself on the counter. This was the shit he hated most. People thought they couldn’t handle normal life things just because they were living in a nightmare. In reality, they _needed_ normal things. Adam needed them, and Ronan _especially_ needed them. He was so isolated in being a caregiver that when Adam died he didn’t know how he was going to go back to any kind of life.

“I’m sorry, Ronan—”

“Congratulations, man,” Ronan said, clasping a hand on Gansey’s shoulder. “Send my condolences to Blue—does she know she’s marrying a complete douchebag?”

Gansey smiled, though it was shattered at the edges. He looked so sad all the time. If grieving was an endurance exercise, Richard Campbell Gansey III was the world champ. Every time he came to see Adam Ronan could see the brokenness in his whole body, and it made him feel more broken too.

“She knows,” Gansey finally replied, tears welling up in his eyes. “I should tell Adam.”

“Wait a minute—did Blue propose to you?” Ronan asked, realizing that usually there was only one engagement ring between fiancés.

Gansey rolled his eyes. “No. For as counter-culture as she is, she was not going to do a reverse proposal. But she did insist we both have rings, and she took me out looking for one.” He shrugged. “Probably _precisely_ so you would ask that question.”

Ronan laughed—a short little laugh that surprised even him. “Sounds like her.”

They stared at each other for a moment, two diverging paths finally splitting off. Gansey was turning into a real adult with a fiancée and limitless opportunity. He’d always had limitless opportunity, but never anyone to share it with, not really. And Ronan had a dying boyfriend, blindingly high hospital bills just barely being covered by an increasingly annoyed insurance company, and he hadn’t seen Declan or Matthew in over two months because they couldn’t stand to see Adam wasting away and Ronan couldn’t leave him.

There was no happy ending for him. Not unless God decided to throw him a miracle, just this once. But He wouldn’t. Ronan could feel in his bones that the boy in the next room probably wouldn’t see his nineteenth birthday, and the legal hoops his death would bring were getting higher and higher by the day.

No one ever told him caring for his dying boyfriend meant losing his own life too. No one prepared him for that.

“I’m really happy for you,” Ronan said.

Gansey kept staring.

Ronan wondered how their wedding would look. Everyone would smile, Maura would probably cry the whole time or some shit, and Ronan would have to share the same room as Mrs, Gansey who hated him, Mr. Gansey who was disturbed by him, and the man who had beat his father to death with a tire iron.

He would face them all without Adam.

Without his brothers.

Alone.

As if reading his thoughts, Gansey shook his head once. His lips drew down at the edges just before he started to cry. His hand came to his face as he sobbed, pinching the bridge of his nose as the water started to boil.

The sweet night air of new summer blew in through the open window, enveloping Ronan in the scent of his childhood: warm earth and growing grass. Moths bounced against the screen, leaving dusty marks as their scales plumed from their wings.

It was easier to watch the moths in their hopeless quest for the kitchen lightbulb than it was to watch Gansey lose it in his kitchen.

“You never told me what it was like,” Ronan said after a long moment, still not looking away from the window.

“What?” Gansey sputtered, lifting his hand from his face.

“When you died. You never told me what it was like.”

Gansey choked on a sob. “I don’t think mine counted.”

“It counted,” Ronan replied with a dark edge to his voice. “It fucking counted.”

“Then it felt like nothing, because I don’t remember it.”

Because time didn’t work in a linear way for Cabeswater. The Gansey in his kitchen was a Gansey from a moment before his death or a year or an hour. They had no way to know, and no one ever asked.

A bigger, fuzzier moth thumped insistently against the screen. Ronan was tempted to bust his fingers through it to curl his fist around the moth’s wriggling thorax and squish out its stupid insides.

Instead he turned to the pot of still-boiling water and poured the pasta in.

“So when’s the wedding?” Ronan asked, stirring the pasta. He pulled a pan for the chicken and nodded for Gansey to start helping.

“Blue wants it in the fall, in the mountains. Somewhere with lots of trees,” Gansey said, his voice shaking. “You’d be surprised how excited she is. Not so much about the dress and stuff, but the planning. I want her to have whatever she wants, and I think this time she might actually take me up on my offer.”

“Your mom’s gonna let you have a wedding in the fall? In the mountains?”

Gansey chuckled, recovering himself. “She’s over the moon that I’m getting married. Especially to a girl--I really do think she thinks you were my boyfriend back when we were younger.”

They’d been something. Friends, but more. A bond lacquered thick with the knowing of each other in a way they knew no one else. Ronan still didn’t have a word to describe it, but it wasn’t romantic. It had been something just between them. Something that didn’t survive to adulthood for anyone that experienced it. At least, theirs hadn’t.

“We should eat in the dining room,” Ronan said after a long moment. “I don’t want to wake Adam up and make him feel like he needs to be a good host.”

“Of course,” Gansey said.

When he reached over to grab the parmesan, Ronan noticed his engagement ring was no longer there. Ronan pretended it didn’t make him feel better, because he wanted to pretend he hadn’t lied.

“You should’ve woken me up,” Adam said later that night, his voice leathery. Ronan helped him drink some water, then positioned him in bed, his skeletal body immediately curling up into the electric blanket Ronan had dreamed.

“I tried,” he reminded him. “You wanted to sleep.”

“I didn’t want to sleep,” Adam said even as his eyes were falling closed. “It just gets harder and harder to stay awake long enough. Was he okay?”

“He made some mediocre chicken fettucine alfredo,” Ronan said, smoothing his hand over Adam’s bald head. “You didn’t miss much.”

“Except him getting engaged,” Adam muttered. His head lolled slightly to the side. “Can you text him for me? Take a picture, I’ll give a thumbs up.”

Ronan grabbed his phone from the nightstand and held it up.

The corners of Adam’s lips ticked up slightly, and he lifted his hand to give a thumbs up that made him look like a skeleton trying to be kid-friendly for a Halloween ad.

Ronan lowered the phone and texted Gansey, no photo attached. He hadn’t taken one.

_parrish says congratulations. gave you both a thumbs up._

He sent the message and reached over to rub the covers over Adam’s leg.

“Texted him. Story time?”

Adam nodded. “Closer, so I can snuggle.”

Ronan smiled. Dream lights clustered around Adam’s eyes, creating warm eyelashes. Reading a bedtime story to Adam hadn’t been an intentional thing, but he’d read a story to Opal one night when she wouldn’t get out of their bed, to stop her from chewing her bottom lip to pieces as she fought not to scream out in anguish. Ronan read her to sleep in the way his father used to spin his stories to him for the same reason, except Ronan had no stories of his own that didn’t end in death. Adam had told him the next day that he didn’t feel the pain when Ronan read to him. So he read every night.

He crawled into bed with Adam’s storybook and opened it. The dream lights left Adam’s face to settle around the words so Ronan could read them. He didn’t need the lights, though, he knew all the little book by heart now.

“In the great green room,” he began, “There was a telephone, and a red balloon

and a picture of a cow jumping over the moon. And there were three little bears sitting on chairs…”

Adam’s eyes fell closed, but his mouth hadn’t yet gone slack. Ronan was tempted to say something, to whisper one last _I love you_ , just in case he didn’t get the chance again. Instead he turned the page.

“And two little kittens, and a pair of mittens, and a little toy house, and a young mouse. And a comb and a brush and a bowl full of mush, and a quiet old lady who was whispering ‘hush.’”

He thought of Gansey back at Monmouth, fingers laced with Blue’s, probably recounting the story about how he totally fucking blew it with the engagement announcement. He was probably crying about it, and Blue probably telling him it really wasn’t that awful. After all, it wasn’t like Adam would be around much longer to feel guilt for. Whether she said or thought the last part didn’t matter. Ronan knew she thought it. He also knew Gansey thought it too, behind all the tears.

“Goodnight room,” Ronan read. “Goodnight moon. Good night cow jumping over the moon.”

Adam’s jaw went slack, as it did every time Ronan read that page.

This time, instead of closing the book as he usually did, he reached in his pocket and pulled out the little ring he’d dreamed months and months ago, long before he had known that the next time Adam came home would be to die. Back when summer still meant happiness.

It was a dream ring. It only had a material when you looked at it, and it appeared as whatever the onlooker thought it should. Whatever ring would look perfect to them, so that no one could say anything bad about it when it was on Adam’s finger. He’d dreamed dozens more, but his original prototype always felt the right weight in his hand.

He supposed that didn’t matter now, and neither did the ring.

“You like it?” Ronan asked, holding the ring up to the moon.

Adam breathed softly beside him.

“I could’ve made you a really kickass wedding,” Ronan continued, running the band between his fingers. “Lindenmere would have given you whatever you wanted. Except, y’know. The cure for fucking cancer.”

Ronan snatched the ring to his palm. That was enough moping for one night. He set the book on the nightstand just as his phone buzzed. A text from Gansey.

_Tell him thank you. We’ll see you both very soon._

Ronan opened the nightstand drawer, dropped the ring inside and slammed it shut so hard that the book fell to the floor with a soft _whump_.

Adam stirred at the sound, making a quiet noise of pain beside him. Just a normal pain noise. The normal pain of his irradiated lung getting sicker and the chemo drugs turning his teeth to mush and his bones to soup and his blood to poison. And tomorrow Ronan would willingly carry his mushy, soupy, poisoned boyfriend to get more mushified, more soupy, and more poisoned one last time.

Ronan took Adam’s hand and broke the rules by bringing it to his lips for one stupid kiss. Surely one kiss wouldn’t do more than the drugs already had. 

He closed his eyes and prayed like he did every night and every morning and every time he saw Adam fade a little more. 

_Please don’t leave me alone here. Please don’t take him away._

He opened his eyes again when he was done, just holding Adam’s hand to his cheek.

“Night, Parrish,” he said, though he wouldn’t sleep for hours. “Make sure you wake up tomorrow. I’m not gonna eat all that breakfast for both of us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _excerpts from Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown_


	15. Chapter 15

Though Ronan hated hospitals, he had learned them. He knew who was a nurse, who was an oncologist, who was actually in charge and who wasn’t. He saw who protected Adam and who treated him like he was playing up an act. Ronan hated those people especially. He had screamed at an asshole nurse who had implied Adam wasn’t trying hard enough to sit up during chemo once, after he’d just been shot with radiation for forty minutes prior. Adam had tried so hard, and when the nurse asked him again to sit up more, Ronan had flown off the handle when a little tear left Adam’s eye. He couldn’t stand the fucking doctors with no souls. To them, Adam was just another box to tick.

He didn’t know how anyone could be impatient with someone so earnest and clearly so close to death. The pillows of Adam’s hospital bed didn’t even seem to depress at all with his weight as he laid there in the bed, still smiling at medical staff, still saying thank you.

While Adam went to his last radiation treatment, Ronan hurried up the street to the office supply store that also—blessedly—sold helium-filled balloons.

“I’m here to pick up my order,” Ronan said upon arrival, slapping a fifty on the counter.

The clerk had looked at him like he was breaking the law by standing there wearing combat boots and a Harvard sweatshirt at the same time.

“Did you—”

“I called yesterday. I’m Ronan Lynch.” He looked past the man at the collection of balloons floating behind him. “Those are mine.”

No one at the hospital asked him to sign in again when he marched through the cancer wing holding two fistfuls of balloon strings. Some said Happy Birthday, some said Happy Anniversary, most were heart shaped and shiny red. Quantity over quality. The receptionists covered their mouths and smiled, the nurses in the hall smiled too.

He set them everywhere in Adam’s chemo room until they created a forest of shiny floating beacons. Then he took out a sharpie he’d also bought at the office supply store and scrawled YOU DID IT in all capital letters. He shortened the string on that balloon and hid it behind his chair for when it was all finally over.

Ronan admired his balloon forest and let himself smile before he headed out to the hallway to wash his hands and rinse his mouth with mouthwash so he could feel okay kissing Adam when he was done with his treatment.

The day was going okay so far. Getting out of bed and into the car hadn’t been so awful, and Adam had smiled around his face mask when Ronan dropped Chainsaw and Opal off at Fox Way. Usually he was asleep by that point.

Ronan settled in at the room, and it wasn’t long before he heard the squeaking wheels of Adam’s wheelchair and the voice of the nurse (kind, but not the best) who was wheeling him back toward his room.

“—something for you,” she was saying, just as she wheeled Adam into the room.

Ronan stood up and spread his arms. “Surprise.”

Adam’s face was puffy from his pre-treatment medication, but he lit up upon seeing the balloons. It made him look like he had some fat to his face again, closer to normal. His eyes were certainly alive.

“Ronan—you did all of this?”

“Mhm.” He crossed the little room and gave his boyfriend a kiss to the forehead that could only be described as a smooch.

Adam laughed blissfully, and lifted his too-thin arms to wind them around Ronan’s neck. “I love you.”

“Love you more,” Ronan returned with another little kiss. He knelt down and got his arm hooked under Adam’s knee, the way he always did before carrying him. He carefully lifted him from the chair and moved him to the bed, making sure to set him up comfortably the way Adam liked it for chemo treatments.

Ronan didn’t pull away once Adam was settled. Instead he stayed with him and leaned over Adam’s lap, resting his elbow on the mattress next to Adam’s hip, careful not to put weight on him.

“You okay? Did it hurt a lot this time?”

He thumbed Adam’s cheekbone with his free hand, happy to see him still in good spirits. Adrenaline for the final treatments was good, and it was keeping him awake and alert in a way Ronan hadn’t seen since the beginning of all of this.

Adam shook his head. “S’been okay. Almost done.”

Ronan kissed his forehead again. It was hard not to be a little excited—they would never have to come back here for treatments again. Honestly, even if Dr. Bah suggested another round, Ronan wasn’t sure Adam would accept it. They could only do so much.

“Can Ronan stay in bed with me?” Adam asked, trying to look over him at the nurse.

“I think we can allow that for your last treatment,” the nurse said (nicer than originally thought).

“Look at that,” Ronan said with a smile, daring a glance down to Adam’s lips. “Kiss for good luck?”

Adam shook his head, but he was smiling too. “Nope. They look gross. Not until they don’t look gross.”

“They don’t look _that_ gross,” Ronan teased.

Adam lifted his hand and flicked Ronan’s temple. It had a bit of bite to it, but Ronan just bared his teeth and snapped once.

“Mr. Lynch, I’ll need you to move to Adam’s left side so we can access his port properly,” the nurse instructed.

Ronan stole a kiss to Adam’s cheek and carefully rolled over to his left, as instructed.

“I told them to say that so I don’t have to listen to you whine the whole time,” Adam said, but he turned his face toward him so his hearing ear was as close as possible anyway.

Ronan watched as Adam closed his eyes, then looked over at the nurse who started taking his blood pressure and preparing him for treatment.

“In an hour you’ll be all done,” Ronan assured him, noting the way Adam’s brow furrowed just a little when the blood pressure wrap squeezed his arm.

It was easy to think about chemo as one last box to tick off, but Ronan had to remind himself that it wasn’t that for Adam. Cancer had a fucking way to make even the most simple things dangerous. Chemo treatments were always dangerous for his weak body, and this treatment already came with an overnight hospital stay. Dr. Bah had said it might be two days, because Adam was very weak. He was being injected with powerful drugs for an hour straight, and all Ronan could think about was everything beyond this.

“Did you make the list of movies?” Adam asked, his eyes still shut.

“Fuck yeah I did,” Ronan replied. The hospital had a barrage of horrific “films” to choose from on the in-house streaming service, and last radiation treatment Ronan had been in charge of putting together a marathon for the final one. “Got ‘em all on my phone.”

“Good. Which do we start with?”

“The Fault In Our St—”

“ _Ronan._ ”

He grinned. “It’s their fault for putting it on demand in a hospital. I picked Old Yeller.”

“Doesn’t the dog—”

“Shh. No spoilers, I haven’t seen it,” Ronan said, putting an arm behind his head so he could see the nurse a little better. He always felt like they were nicer about things when they were being watched, but he never tested his theory by looking away.

Adam’s hand moved between them, and Ronan took it with his own, lacing their fingers together.

“I’m right here,” Ronan soothed. He thumbed the side of Adam’s palm as Adam nodded quickly.

The nurse informed them it was time, explained details of the treatment (they already knew), then attached the tubing to Adam’s port. With no fanfare, the drugs began to flow into his veins, drop by drop.

“Last one,” the nurse said, trying to sound excited. “I’ll be back to check on you in a little bit—you know the drill, hit the button if you need me.”

“Thank you,” Adam said, as always, offering her a smile.

Ronan smiled too, because Adam was doing so well. He knew the chemo would wipe out all of the energy he was holding onto, but usually he was barely functioning by now.

The nurse left, and then it was just the quiet sounds of a hospital room. Adam nosed into his neck and Ronan moved closer, holding him as gently as he could. It was hard not to hope, but Ronan tried his best not to. One good day didn’t mean Adam was magically getting better. The effects of his final treatment wouldn’t even hit him until later in the week, and could very well be too damaging to recover from.

They watched Old Yeller, and Adam fell asleep before the end. Disconnecting the port was uneventful because Adam still wasn’t awake to celebrate it, but Ronan left his special balloon at the foot of Adam’s bed while he went out to get them dinner. He always hit the same Chinese restaurant, and they always glared at Ronan like his coat was going to come alive and kill them. This time they smiled, probably because he was wearing his Harvard sweatshirt. Or maybe he looked happier than usual.

He ordered miso soup for Adam, some crab Rangoon, and a vegetable chow mein for himself. He usually wanted egg foo young, but Adam had puked all over himself when Ronan opened it the first time they’d done Chinese, and that had kind of soured his craving altogether.

Their food in hand, Ronan hurried back to the hospital, and this time he did have to sign in.

“Thanks for the balloon,” Adam greeted when Ronan returned.

Ronan smiled. “You’re awake? They give you some new drugs or some shit?”

He brought dinner over and placed Adam’s cup of soup on his plastic serving tray and dragged his seat over to Adam’s bedside.

“It don’t feel as gross as usual,” Adam replied, unwrapping his spoon. “And I wanted to be awake when you came back.”

“Careful, Parrish, or people will start thinking you like me or something.” Ronan wished so badly that he could kiss him properly. Adam didn’t like to be called strong or brave for dealing with cancer, but he was.

“Can’t have that,” Adam said, scooping up a spoonful of soup. “I want them to know I love you instead.”

Ronan forked up some chow mein (he was a basic American bitch and he knew it) and stuffed his cheeks full of noodles. He hadn’t eaten much that day. He’d been too scared that Adam would somehow deteriorate if he walked away before they got to the hospital.

“I was thinking,” Adam began, stirring his soup. “You should go to Declan’s.”

Ronan froze mid-chew. He reached forward to rest the back of his palm against Adam’s forehead to feel if it was warm.

“I’m not sick,” Adam chuckled.

“You’re talking like you’re fucking sick,” Ronan said around the noodles.

Adam looked at him and Ronan instinctively softened. His attitude rounded at the edges, even the sarcasm in his tone always fell away. Adam’s eyes were once a bright blue that Ronan could lose himself in, but now they were a worn grey that in clouds signified day’s ruined plans lurking on the horizon.

“You haven’t seen them in months,” Adam said quietly. “And you haven’t had a break from me in months.”

“I have a break from you every time you fall asleep,” Ronan joked, but it fell flat in his mouth.

“That’s not the same.”

“I don’t want to be anywhere else.” Ronan forked more noodles into his mouth as if that might prevent further conversation.

Adam reached over and brushed his fingers across Ronan’s bottom lip. He started, completely unused to Adam having the strength to initiate any sort of touch.

“You’ve been the best boyfriend a guy could ask for,” Adam murmured, eye tired. “And I know it’s been hard for you not to see them. Declan’s like, ten minutes from here. He should be here visiting, but I know he’s scared of me.”

“He’s not scared,” Ronan said, quick to correct.

“Disturbed, then.”

Ronan didn’t respond, because he didn’t want to lie.

Adam’s hand left his face and he sipped another spoonful of soup. “I’m going to be watched all night by a full hospital staff. I’ll probably throw up all this soup and be a living corpse in a few hours, but they can deal with that. You should go surprise your brothers and do something fun with them and stop worrying about me for a night.”

“Adam—”

“We made it through treatment,” Adam said, looking at his soup. “I think that deserves a celebration.”

What he wasn’t saying was that getting through treatment didn’t mean he was cancer free. Getting through treatment was only a partial win, and being cancer free was another partial win. Adam was still a too-thin boy too weak to walk up stairs on his own. He’d survived the shelling, but that didn’t mean he’d won the war, and Ronan knew it.

“It does deserve a celebration,” Ronan agreed. “And I want to celebrate with you.”

“Ronan.”

The way he said it hinted to a fight, and Ronan was keen to avoid those.

But he didn’t want to leave. He was scared to leave Adam alone—sometimes it felt like death had only stayed away because he was right there watching.

“I’m not going to die,” Adam said, looking up at him again. “I can feel when I’m close, and I’m not close.”

“Don’t fucking—don’t say shit like that, Adam,” he spat, a shiver of fear running up his spine.

“I know that’s what you’re thinking about, so I’m telling you that I’m not dying.”

He said it so simply, the way other people talked about whether it was going to rain or not.

Ronan did want to see his brothers. Even Declan. Maybe especially him, though he knew he would never actually say sorry to him, or thank you. He just couldn’t make himself do it, even now. 

“Go,” Adam said, looking up from his soup. “Nothing’s going to happen to me.”

Ronan kept eating his chow mein, twirling the noodles around his plastic fork. He let the silence breathe between them, thinking it over. He wanted to leave just as much as he wanted to stay. He wanted to play cards with Matthew and drink a beer while Declan sipped on a gin and tonic or whatever the fuck he drank now, but he also wanted to curl up in bed with this more-alive Adam and watch their movies.

“If you let me kiss you, I’ll go,” Ronan finally said.

Adam pulled his spoon from his soup, curling his fingers around the plastic.

“I wish you wouldn’t.”

“I want to. And if you don’t want me to kiss you, then I’m not leaving.” He looked up, but Adam wouldn’t meet his gaze. “That’s my condition.”

“Fine.”

Adam started chewing his bottom lip, likely trying to get the chapped skin off.

Ronan smiled. “Take your time, I’m finishing my food.” He dug into his pocket and produced Adam’s chapstick.

Adam took it from him, not hiding his annoyance.

Ronan smiled wider and kept eating. He focused on his food and thought about all of the conditions he would lay out for the nurses. They needed to call him if Adam puked, if he started shaking, if he had a seizure. If he started moaning, if he started crying, if he got a fever. There was a seemingly infinite list, and he knew the nurses probably wouldn’t call him unless Adam had heart failure or something, because despite how nice they were with Adam, they didn’t seem to enjoy treating him beyond what was necessary. Fucking privatized healthcare.

“Okay, do it,” Adam said, sitting up a little straighter.

Ronan grinned. “Weirdo. Glad I didn’t say anything before I kissed you the first time.”

As if he could have, his heart had been in his throat and just breathing wrong would have probably sent him running from the room. But he did feel the same anticipation, the same eagerness to taste what Adam’s lips again after being denied so long.

“Just do it,” Adam growled.

Ronan shook his head. “Gotta get ready first.”

He checked his phone to make sure Matthew was home, and smiled when he saw the glowing blue dot blinking in Declan’s house, even though he didn’t like that there was a GPS signal for his little brother’s location. He gathered his trash and tossed it in the bin, then texted Adam the list of movies so he’d have it. He fished his coat out from behind the forest of balloon strings and shrugged it on.

He could feel guilt already tugging at him, but Adam had asked him to go, and he wanted to see his brothers, so he would go.

He sat down on the bed next to Adam and looked him over, just in case it was the last time he saw him alive. Adam’s head was still shiny and hairless, with crepe-y skin at his ears and neck where he needed some moisturizer.

He took Adam’s hand and squeezed it.

“I’ll can be here in fifteen minutes if you need me,” Ronan said, thumbing over Adam’s stuck-out knuckles. “Text me or call me if you start feeling weird, got it?”

“Yeah,” Adam said, thumbing his fingers in return. “I promise I will.”

Ronan leaned in, the whishing noise of his coat fabric rubbing together the telltale sound of someone going away. He paused before the kiss, trying to ignore the way Adam looked like he was bracing for impact. Guilt gnawed at his belly.

He couldn’t do it.

Ronan pulled away, and guilt turned to hurt.

“Punked,” he said, standing abruptly so Adam wouldn’t be able to see the pain in his face.

He couldn’t kiss someone who didn’t want to be kissed. If he did and Adam ended up dying, he wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about how he forced a kiss on him. Just imagining it made his stomach sour.

“Ronan—”

“Call me if anything goes funny,” Ronan said, cutting him off. He tossed up his hood and schooled his face. He was a bad liar, but one thing he’d perfected was appearing unfazed when it came to facing Adam’s health issues. He did it for Adam, so Adam felt like he was stronger than he was.

“It’s okay,” Adam said, reaching out for him. “I want you to kiss me.”

Now it was starting to sound like one of the _What is Consent?_ videos he’d unfortunately attended class to watch at Agloinby.

“I love you,” Ronan said, gently squeezing Adam’s blanketed foot. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

Adam frowned, then nodded. “I love you too.”

Ronan winked and blew him a kiss.

Adam rolled his eyes and pretended to catch it in his still-extended hand.

Satisfied as much as he could be for an awkward moment, Ronan left the room and headed for the nurse’s station. They hated when he did that, but he hated that his boyfriend had lung cancer, so they could fuck off.

When he found Adam’s nurse (Gina, according to her nametag), Ronan informed her that he was leaving for the night but to call him if anything changed about Adam’s condition. She was judging him and he knew it, but Adam had asked him to do this, so he didn’t let her guilt trip him. The goddamn nerve. But he knew that telling her what he really thought (which was for her to fuck right the fuck off) would mean Adam could die and she probably wouldn’t call him until he was already cold. So he played nice and left his number on the white board with a note to update him about Adam’s condition, so even when he shift ended, the next nurse would know. She allowed it, so that was something.

Then he left for Declan’s, narrowly avoiding a few speeding tickets because he was so clearly crying behind the wheel. One cop’s lights went on, the cop saw him, and he turned his lights off again.

The tires squealed as Ronan drifted the corner to Declan’s house, and he fell trying to get out of the car because he needed to see them so badly. But on the ground he took a moment to wipe his face on his sleeve and collect himself. He didn’t want to be a burden. He didn’t want Declan to turn him away.

So Ronan got up from the ground slowly, adult-like, grabbed his day bag from the trunk (Adam always made him pack one just in case), then walked the lonely path to Declan’s door.

He lifted his hand to knock and thought about Adam not wanting to kiss him, how it made him want to vomit to think he might have forced Adam to endure his lips just because he wanted to kiss him one last time.

His knuckles came to rest on the door, not having knocked.

Maybe that was a sign, he thought. Maybe he shouldn’t—

The lock turned and the door opened, bathing Ronan in warm light.

Declan stood there with his perfect hair and a tailored athleisure ensemble, leaning against the open door.

“How?” Ronan asked, choking on the word before it came out.

“Adam called,” Declan said, and his voice was quivering. “He said you might get here and change your mind.”

Ronan let out a pathetic little snort, but his lashes were wet. He looked up at the sky, trying to suck the tears back in. He didn’t understand why everything had to hurt so much. He was just trying to do the right thing.

“I feel like shit,” Declan said. “I know it’s fucked up that I haven’t visited, and that I stopped going to church and—and kept Matthew away because of it.”

“S’okay,” Ronan said quietly, still staring up at the dark sky.

“It’s not. I didn’t realize…I guess I didn’t want to think too hard about what I was doing to you.”

Ronan looked at his brother, wondering how often he’d wanted to run away when they were younger. How often he almost abandoned them—just for a few hours, just a few days. Just long enough. But he never did. He left work and school and job interviews to make sure they were okay. Every time.

“I’m a big boy,” Ronan said. “You were there when I needed you most, y’know?”

Declan looked shocked for a moment, but it quickly melted away to his usual bland expression. He opened the door a little wider.

“Come inside. I have the guest—”

“I think he’s gonna die, Declan,” Ronan forced out, bursting into tears—but in a silent way. He’d perfected the silent way.

Declan frowned. He stepped forward, but Ronan moved first to catch him in a hug. He let his full weight fall into his brother, like he’d wanted to do for months, but couldn’t do with any of his friends. Declan stumbled but held him up, then gently guided them both to the ground.

Declan rubbed his back the way their mother used to do. They never hugged—hugs were for Matthew, not for them. But it was good.

“I know,” Declan said after a moment.

Ronan cried harder. Finally, someone else said it. Finally, someone else knew.

He could tell Declan didn’t really know what to do with him, that he was probably warring with the reality that neighbors might poke their heads out of their windows and witness this. He could feel the tension in Declan’s shoulders, the unsure way his fingers moved across his back, unfamiliar.

“Come inside and play cards with me and Matthew,” Declan said. “Then once he goes to bed we’ll look at everything we’ve put together, okay? I’ll run through the financials, we’ll make sure everything is squared away. That way you can just focus on and saying goodbye.”

_“I wish you wouldn’t.”_

Ronan pulled back, a trail of saliva and snot connecting him to Declan’s shoulder. Usually Declan would make a noise of disgust at bodily fluid that wasn’t blood, but he just looked him in the eyes, strong and sure. It was like looking in a mirror when Adam looked at him.

He let out a little hiccup and caught the spit/snot trails on his sleeve.

Declan reached up and ruffled his fuzz.

“Matthew convinced me to buy root beer and ice cream. I can make you a root beer float,” he offered.

Ronan just sat there on the brick step, hollowed.

_“We made it through treatment, I think that deserves a celebration.”_

Declan stood up, then grabbed Ronan’s coat by the shoulders and hauled him up to his feet with surprising strength.

“You been doing squats at fuckface academy?” Ronan asked, his voice still harsh from crying.

“I can squat more than you, farm boy,” Declan returned, giving him a shove through the door.

“Ronan!” Matthew cried, running in from the living room. “Where’d you come from?”

Matthew’s arms wrapped around him and Ronan gave him a long hug, soaking in the happiness that always exuded from his little brother. His little dream.

“Came to see you, you little puke,” he greeted.

Emotion welled up in him and threatened to explode again, but Matthew squeezed him tighter and it ebbed.

“I missed you,” Matthew said quietly.

“I missed you too,” Ronan replied, carding his fingers through Matthew’s golden hair. The feeling was alien to him now that Adam had lost his. He wondered if Matthew’s hair had always been this soft and silky and he just hadn’t noticed.

“Get the cards, Matthew,” Declan said from where he stood at the fridge. “Let Ronan put his stuff away.”

Matthew gave him another squeeze and ran off, and Ronan was reminded of what home felt like. His home was Adam now, but it felt different because Adam didn’t have the ability to be himself. Home with Adam was something Ronan had to hold up with all of his strength, but not here. Not this home.

He put his bag on the guest bed and moved back to the kitchen, snatching the ice cream tub away from Declan to start scooping vanilla into cups.

Declan thumped him on the shoulder once, then gave a soft pat.

“We’re always going to be here for you,” Declan said as he continued rifling through the fridge. “That probably sounds really…really fucking hypocritical right now.” He set down the six pack of glass bottle root beers on the counter with a little clunk.

“I really like Adam, but I’ve never told him that,” Declan continued, his hands curling to fists on the granite. “I’ve never actually said it to him, probably because it took me too long to come to that decision. You’re just…it’s so important to me that you’re happy. That you make good decisions and take care of yourself. I didn’t know if he was a good decision.”

Ronan plopped another scoop of ice cream into a glass and said nothing. He wasn’t sure he would have anything nice to say.

“But—what I’m trying to say is that he is. He’s been the best thing to ever happen to you. But when you brought him to Mass that first week and I saw him I…” Declan went quiet for a moment. “I could tell he was so freaked out about us being there. He looked so awful, and you looked so uncomfortable I didn’t know how I could keep forcing that on you at church.”

“You could have come to visit the house,” Ronan said.

“I hate that house,” Declan muttered. “And I know Adam would think that the way I feel about that place is a reflection on him somehow. He’s that kind of guy.”

He was, but Ronan didn’t feel Declan got to just decide that.

“It was probably the wrong thing to do,” Declan continued as he tipped a cup and poured the root beer into it. Ronan watched it foam up around the ice cream and listened to the pleasant sizzle of carbonation. “I should have said something, but after I missed church that first week I freaked out. I’ve never freaked out like that. I didn’t know what to say that would make it better, so I just decided to be a coward and say nothing.”

“Declan—”

“I’m sorry,” Declan said, setting the glass upright again. “That’s what I’m getting at. I’m sorry.”

Ronan had never heard Declan apologize for anything in his life unless it was a totally fake apology to appease a politician or their crony. He stared at the root beer float as it threatened to overflow the cup but didn’t quite do it. Perfectly crafted—a Declan root beer float.

“I treated you like shit the entire time you were trying to help me,” Ronan said, sliding the next glass over. “You had a fuckall way of trying to help me, but you were a kid too. I needed someone to be angry at and you let it be you for years.”

Ronan looked up and met Declan’s gaze, brother to brother. It didn’t stir anger in him like it once did, it didn’t make him want to punch something or break the law. Declan was just his brother, maybe for the first time ever.

“So now we’re even.”

They weren’t, not really, because Ronan’s years of anger didn’t equate to Declan’s few months of negligence.

But Declan just nodded knowingly and set himself up for the next pour. They were even.


	16. Chapter 16

Adam had not been alone for months. When Ronan stepped from the doorway to go see his brothers, Adam felt a weight lift from his already compressed chest cavity.

Ronan was trying. He was giving up, but he was trying. Adam could see it in the way he held tears at bay, in the way he joked less, in the way he looked at him like it might be the last time. Someday, it would be. Adam knew that much. But if this was really the end of his treatments, he figured he could make himself go a few more years. Maybe he’d be totally better by then, but he was a kid who had grown up stressed to the point that his bones hadn’t even formed properly—something Dr. Schafer had only mentioned in passing during his x-ray viewings with Ronan, but explained to him in a few brief phone calls he’d been able to steal while he’d taken baths—back when he could still move around the house on his own.

It was true that Ronan needed to see his brothers. It was also true that Adam needed a night without Ronan. A night to stop bottling the pain.

The chemo drugs always felt innocent enough going in, but an hour or so later they seemed to thicken in his blood. Everything started throbbing, but mostly his head. His stomach tossed, his insides seized up, his throat hardened and his goddamn lungs seemed to fill with slurry instead of air with every breath.

His care nurse, Gina, came rushing in when he pressed the attention button. Long gone was the Adam too proud to suffer.

“Everything hurts,” he said, softly. With Ronan it was always better to admit pain softly, so it sounded less like an emergency. It wasn’t an emergency, it was a constant. He wouldn’t have understood it before, that pain could inflict so much, all over, all the time.

“On a scale of—”

“Eight,” Adam said. “It’ll be nine soon.”

Gina looked at him, trying to determine if he was a wuss who rated too high or a true hero who rated too low. He was Adam, and he was exactly right on his reading of the scale.

His fingers curled around the plastic handle at the side of his bed. “Don’t call Ronan.”

That seemed to help her decide how to judge him, and she nodded before leaving the room.

It wasn’t long before his phone rang. Adam closed his eyes, trying to muster the ability to speak without sounding like his entrails were being put through a blender.

When he lifted the vibrating smartphone, it wasn’t Ronan calling.

_Thank god._

“Hi, Dr. Bah,” Adam greeted. He didn’t hide the pain.

“Adam, your nurse is saying you’ve sent Ronan away and you’re having pain?”

The instinct to lie for Ronan’s sake jumped to his mouth, but he reminded himself that he was probably playing cards and talking to his brothers now. Ronan was safe.

“I’m always having pain, Dr. Bah.”

“On a scale of—”

“Eight. Most days six or seven. I don’t want Ronan to know.”

It was always best to answer questions with his warnings tacked on so they couldn’t be lost later in conversation and told to Ronan anyway.

“That’s pretty severe, Adam,” Dr. Bah said. He sounded tired, but concerned. It was late.

“Makes sense that you’d be in severe pain when your body and your medicine are trying to kill you,” he murmured.

Why didn’t hospitals have nice views? His view was of the building next door: a flat, plain, concrete structure that barely reflected the dull orange lights of DC at night.

“How long has this pain been present?”

_How long have you known you have cancer? At what point did you feel your cold wasn’t just a cold? Did you really get a black eye falling off your bike?_

“I’ve managed it,” he decided to reply.

“Adam, I’m here to make this easier and more comfortable for you. I can’t do that if you’re hiding things from me,” said Dr. Bah.

“I’m telling you now.” He picked at the seam on the bedside handle, suppressing the urge to vomit. Nausea was setting in. He’d start puking soon.

Dr. Bah sighed on the other end of the line. “Okay. I’ll get you on stronger pain medications.”

“Not addictive ones,” Adam said.

“I’ll do my best.”

The ribs on his right side started aching. They were fragile now, and it felt like the radiation turned them molten for a few days after treatment.

“Please hurry,” he groaned, riding out the wave of pain.

“I’m on it. I’ll see you next week, Adam. Hopefully with good news. ”

He said his goodbyes to Dr. Bah and tried to slow his breathing while he waited for Gina to return with his meds. He counted down from ten, a method he used to teach his body to endure. He used it almost constantly with Ronan, so often that he often lost focus on anything Ronan was saying to him. Sleep was his other method of escape, and his favorite.

When he dreamed, it was always the same. And he wasn’t Ronan, so he never brought anything back, not even his health. But he saw things that scared him sometimes. For example, every time he saw Noah, he woke up.

Gina entered the room with a two bottles of pills and a cup of water.

“These will help with nausea and the pain.”

She extended the cup and three pills, all white, all different shapes and textures.

Adam found himself waiting for Ronan’s hands to take the cup and pills, but Ronan wasn’t there.

So he forced himself to sit up, letting out a grunt at the explosion of pain inside him as he did so. He took the cup and popped the pills in his mouth, swallowing them down with a swig of water. He thought to ask her what pills he was taking, but found he didn’t really care.

“Now, you’re probably going to get very tired soon. You’ll catch up on real sleep because you won’t be in pain.”

Adam nodded. “I won’t die, right?”

Gina blinked. “What?”

He looked up at her. “I won’t just go to sleep and not wake up or something, right?”

“None of those pills are a sedative,” she explained. “Your body will sleep to repair itself. It won’t be because you’re shutting down.”

 _Like you would know_ , he wanted to say, but he nodded. He knew she was right, and he knew that he wasn’t going to die if he closed his eyes. Like he’d told Ronan, he could feel when he was close. He started hearing out of his deaf ear, started seeing Noah, Persephone, even a strange version of Gansey who only laughed.

Adam cleared his throat, wincing at the shot of heat that spiraled down it. He reached over to his food tray and grabbed the remote.

“Could you…my boyfriend put together a list of movies for me and I can’t find the next one.” He offered her the remote. “Could you start it for me?”

Gina smiled at him and took the remote. “Sure thing. What movie?”

“Uh…” Adam flicked through his phone. “Jeremiah Johnson.”

“Oh, with Robert Redford?”

He shrugged. “I guess?”

Gina smiled at him, and he watched as she navigated the on-demand system to find a movie with rugged looking Robert Redford he immediately recognized from a meme. _Ronan_. Adam’s lips curled to a faint smile, but his eyes were falling closed against his will.

He fumbled for his phone with suddenly sluggish hands and managed to unlock it. He opened up his messages to text Ronan, but the screen kept blurring.

“Um, Gina?” He sounded like Gansey. “Could you text Ronan? M’tired.”

She glanced around, then took his phone. “What would you like me to say?”

“Tell him it’s you, so he doesn’t freak out. Then…” He trailed off, his head lolling. _No_. “I love’m and m’safe and I hope he has fun with his brothers.”

She replied to him, but her words were muddled and her figure was fading into a pink and black darkness. It was warm, he was weak, so he succumbed easily to it.

The dream always started the same. Adam knew it before he even opened his eyes, though he could tell this one was more vivid than usual. He could smell the clean sheets of Ronan’s bed, feel the warm rays of sunshine on his skin. When he inhaled, he smelled bacon cooking downstairs and it didn’t make him want to puke.

Then he was standing by the bed, pulling the blankets snug. The bed was bigger than Ronan’s, with a fancy cover set like he always saw in magazines: a grey, slightly shining comforter with muted grey sheets and five pillows decoratively placed despite Adam just having slept on one. Ronan’s bedroom was different too. It was bigger, with dark wood floors that had been stained and polished. Two matching dressers, one his, one Ronan’s. Adam always walked over to Ronan’s dresser, attracted by the small jewelry boxes siting on the top.

Just like always, he opened a large velvet one to find a black titanium watch with a sea blue face and silver accents. A dozen dials and miniature faces decorated the inside, making it look even more expensive. When he lifted the watch to his ear he heard it ticking quietly, seconds falling away.

He set the watch down and looked next at a picture frame, but it was always empty. He knew there was a photo there that he couldn’t see, but his mind always hid it from him. So he headed downstairs, past the crammed frames of Chainsaw and Opal and many, many blanks ones.

Piles of shoes sat in the entryway. Ronan’s boots, his sneakers, his work boots. His own nice business shoes, his sneakers, sandals from Blue. Opal’s rain boots, tennis shoes, jelly glittery sandals, a pair of fuzzy boots. When Adam remembered she didn’t wear shoes, they all vanished.

He stepped into the kitchen where the peeling laminate tiles had been pulled away, the wood floor underneath refinished to a greyish color that reminded him that this was a farmhouse. Ronan stood at the stove cooking bacon, but glitched to be standing in front of the sink a moment later, watching out the window.

Ah yes, older Ronan. Adam was always intimidated by him, struck with the same butterflies that he’d felt the moment he’d realized someone as beautiful as Ronan Lynch wanted to be with him. His tattoo curved and shifted over the sculpted muscle of his shirtless back, and his faded grey sweats hung low enough that Adam could see the bump of his hip bone.

Ronan leaned closer to the window, peering out at something. His jaw was shadowed with a bit of stubble, and oh, he was so handsome. He was hot, actually, but that word seemed too childish for this version of Ronan.

“Good morning,” Adam greeted.

Ronan didn’t hear him. He never did.

Instead, Ronan continued rinsing and drying a plate before setting it aside on the drying rack.

“Ronan,” Adam tried again, but Ronan just cursed softly to himself and grabbed another dish.

He heard Chainsaw squawk loudly outside and a gleeful shriek from Opal. Adam moved closer, pressing his hand to the small of Ronan’s back.

“Ronan.”

This time Ronan always froze. He dropped the mug first, chipping it in the sink. Then he looked around, frantic but not afraid.

“I’m right here,” Adam said, echoing what Ronan always said to him when he was frightened. He pressed a kiss to Ronan’s shoulder.

“Dick!” Ronan called, spinning away from him. Adam stumbled, but always caught his footing. “Gansey!”

Something thudded in the living room.

_No._

Adam grabbed Ronan’s wrist with both hands, pleading him not to go in there.

“What is it?” he heard Gansey call.

Panic swelled in him like it always did. This dream was supposed to be him and Ronan, not anyone else.

 _Just us,_ Adam demanded.

But he was no dreamer. This world did not bend to his will. It took his ideas and mocked them.

The Barns vanished in an instant, and Adam found himself drenched, rain pouring. He was in a puddle on his hands and knees, barely able to breathe because the rain was so intense. He gasped, clawing into gravel and muck.

“Hey, asshole.”

Adam looked up and Ronan was standing there, eyes full of hate, hood drawn up to shadow his face. Adam tried to stand, but his body wouldn’t cooperate. His limbs folded under him and he landed face first in the mud. When he pulled from it, the puddle was dark with blood.

“Ronan,” he moaned, his vision darkening as blood spilled from his head and into his eyes. He couldn’t remember if he knew this part or not.

When he finally made out Ronan again, he was holding a dream revolver made of silver and smoke.

It fired just as he opened his mouth to scream.

* * *

“He can’t keep anything down,” Ronan was saying into the phone pressed between his cheek and shoulder. He rubbed at Adam’s back and he felt Ronan’s fingers rattle down his ribcage, even through his shirt and jacket.

Adam dry heaved into the toilet another time, a sickening but powerful feeling of his body working properly for just one thing. Bile slicked the back of his throat, making every swallow feel like he had swallowed a ball of flaming hair.

“Yeah, I tried. He threw it up like two minutes later,” Ronan said, still rubbing his back.

Adam closed his eyes, breathing hard. Toilets were so strangely shaped. Oddly grippable in times of despair. The tile under his knees was cold, and he hated the smell of whatever toilet cleaner they were using here. But at least it was a private room and not a public bathroom setting. Adam wasn’t sure he’d be able to handle the shame of that.

He hadn’t thrown up in the car, and that was a victory. He turned his face to Ronan, offering an exhausted smile. Ronan’s brows lifted in momentary surprise before he smiled back and lifted his hand to fold over Adam’s.

Ronan moved the end of the phone away from his mouth. “He says it’s the new drugs. He’s coming down.”

Adam nodded once. He’d figured as much. If he had to guess, it was the new pain medications fucking with the tracer, but he hoped Dr. Bah wouldn’t say it. Ronan was already suspicious of the higher doses, had already questioned why his medications had changed. But he was happier. Adam was too. He could stay awake most of the day, and he was getting stronger. He could keep most of his meals down, even if they were small. He’d gained eight pounds since his last treatment and it had only been a week.

Things were getting better.

Even now as Ronan used a handwipe from his pocket to swipe the phlegm and slobber hanging from his lips and nose. Even as the back of his throat felt like it was being melted.

There was a soft knock at the door and Ronan moved to his knees to open it.

“Hi, Dr. Bah,” Adam said into the toilet bowl.

“Hi, Adam,” Dr. Bah greeted, but he didn’t sound like he’d stepped inside. “Ronan.”

“Sup, Doc,” Ronan said, but he was focused on Adam again.

“I think I’m okay,” Adam murmured, hesitantly leaving the side of the toilet bowl. “If you have a bag or something.”

“I thought you might say that,” Dr. Bah replied, digging through his pocket before producing a plastic biohazard bag. Radioactive vomit was a bit more of a hazard than most, he supposed.

Ronan took the bag from Dr. Bah and handed it to him. Adam opened it and brought it a safe distance toward his mouth, just in case.

With help from Ronan, he got up from the floor and they both washed their hands thoroughly, Adam fighting not to cough. Sometimes he ended up puking all over himself instead. It was his body’s fun new game of surprise.

Dr. Bah stood patiently outside the bathroom, waving at nurses as they passed by and greeting hospital staff. He was a portly man with a very wheezy way of talking, which may have been what attracted him to study lung cancer. He had greying hair at his temples and a chubby face, the most prominent feature being a fat roll at the bridge of his nose that would make most people look sour but made him look scholarly.

Adam liked that he never knew what Dr. Bah was actually thinking, especially when he felt he was probably thinking his patient wasn’t going to make it to twenty.

“Sorry about that,” Adam said, trying not to sound sheepish.

Dr. Bah shook his head. “Nothing to be sorry about. Let’s get you in for the scans. I’m very excited to see the results.”

Adam kept the bag close as he climbed into his wheelchair and Ronan pushed him down the hall. He hated still being too weak to walk, and he especially hated that Ronan didn’t even look like he was expecting him to try. Ronan was becoming more difficult to read too. Something in him was hardening, steeling itself for loss. He didn’t miss that Ronan was unnerved by his steady recovery over the week. Lynches didn’t trust things to turn good that had gone rotten.

Adam wasn’t sure he trusted it either.

“Did you decide if you’re going to lunch?” Adam asked as they moved down the hall. He tried not to imagine any food.

“Yeah,” Ronan said distractedly, eyeing a woman walking toward them. Her head was wrapped in a scarf, her skin polished smooth and completely hairless. She smiled at Adam, but didn’t show any teeth. They were probably yellowish and disgusting like his. He nodded back at her, though he didn’t feel the solidarity with other cancer patients that his care team always tried to push on him. Maybe it was the way he loved to heap misery on himself. ‘Play the victim,’ as he’d been told once by a face he hardly remembered.

“We’re going to some shit brunch place Declan loves,” Ronan said, lessening his scowl instead of smiling as the woman walked by.

“Bring me a dessert,” Adam hummed. “Surprise me, I don’t want to think about food right now.”

Ronan did smile then.

God, he wished he would have said something different when Ronan wanted to kiss him. He felt so damn horrible about that to the point where a shiver of guilt ran through him whenever he thought about it.

It probably would have helped, if Ronan had gotten that kiss. Maybe it would have softened what was turning to diamond within him.

Once they reached the door Ronan couldn’t go through, Adam gave his hand a squeeze and said his goodbyes. It wasn’t so difficult now. They knew the hospital, they knew the timeframes. Ronan kissed his bald head and promised to pick him out something nice for dessert.

It was still hard to watch him go.

Dr. Bah took the handles of the wheelchair and brought him into the scanning room where the PET scan machine sat waiting like a sentient being.

“How do you feel?” Dr. Bah asked, helping him stand from the wheelchair.

Adam shook his head. “I won’t throw up.”

“That’s only a partial answer.”

He wondered if Dr. Bah really wanted to know. “I feel like I’m swimming in my own body,” Adam answered. “Everything is floating around in blood and body juice, but not bouncing off the walls.”

Dr. Bah didn’t laugh or chuckle to diffuse the statement like he figured anyone else would. Instead he nodded. “No pain?”

“Just my throat from throwing up. And throwing up makes me tired. But no pain.”

Dr. Bah nodded. “That’s good, Adam.”

It didn’t feel good. It didn’t feel natural to go from so much pain to none. But Adam just nodded and crawled onto the patient table. He thought about the first time he’d been scanned, how much he’d been shaking to the point that Dr. Schafer had put a weighted blanket over him to keep him still halfway through.

The PET scans were his alone to face. Ronan wasn’t allowed past the doors, and hospital staff had to stand outside so they wouldn’t be exposed. Only Adam dealt with the radiation, the tracer in his blood, the way the world always felt bleaker when he was finally led from the room.

He didn’t feel _good_.

He felt once again absurdly mortal and surrounded by friends who all reached beyond.

All he could do was scry and follow his boyfriend into dreams he could participate in but never control. Human. Finite.

He closed his eyes once Dr. Bah had left and the machine started whirring around him. The machine reminded him of the stags that wandered Lindenmere, quiet and powerful. He closed his eyes and listened to the sounds of the machine, trying to guess when it was scanning and it was preparing.

People like Gansey and Ronan and Blue didn’t do PET scans. They were all made of something that didn’t fall prey to mutated cells and tumors. Just him.

Sometime later, the table slid out from the doughnut-shaped scanning mechanism and Adam peeled himself from the plasticy covering of the table and back into the wheelchair. Dr. Bah said nothing as he pushed him out, and Adam couldn’t tell if that was a good or bad sign. Probably bad. He hadn’t visited Lindenmere once since starting treatment, and he had little faith that his failing body had been able to vanquish the sickness on its own.

Dr. Bah pushed him out into the main lobby area and Ronan was there, his hood up, holding a small white box.

Adam’s stomach growled at the sight and he smiled wide, because how could he not when a face that handsome lit up just from seeing him?

“Brought you a lemon tart,” Ronan greeted as he placed the pastry box on his lap.

He reached up and pulled Ronan in for a hug. He smelled like…Declan’s cologne.

Adam hugged him a little tighter. “Scan went great.”

“Of course it did.” Ronan gave him a kiss to the cheek and then swung around behind him to take the wheelchair handles from Dr. Bah. “So, how long until we get results?”

“I’m going to go look at the scans right now. Get your things and come find me in my office and we’ll talk it all through.”

“Thanks, Dr. Bah,” Adam said as Ronan pushed him back toward his room.

Once they got there, Adam ate his lemon tart. He wished Ronan would kiss the powdered sugar from his lips, but instead he licked it off with his tongue and tried not to wince at how cracked and hard his lips felt.

Ronan offered him his chapstick before he had to ask.

He changed back into his clothes: one of Ronan’s black t-shirts with “oof” written in small cursive font on the chest, and a pair of sweats. He slid into his sneakers and thought about trying to walk to Dr. Bah’s office, but then remembered he’d also have to walk back to the BMW afterward. He wouldn’t be able to do both.

So he got back into the wheelchair and listened to Ronan tell him about lunch.

“Matthew tried a cappuccino and almost spit it out all over Declan, who got pissed—fucking surprise twist, I know--and ended up drinking it. Then Declan got us these mini quiche things and started preaching about how his fucking recipe from Christmas break was from this place.”

Adam tried to imagine the Lynch brothers sitting at brunch together and not getting kicked out. He tried to imagine Ronan sitting next to Declan and not fighting with him for a whole meal. He wasn’t sure they had ever eaten a meal together without some kind of dramatics or threat of violence.

He knew it was because of him that they weren’t fighting. Because Declan probably felt too guilty and Ronan too sad.

They reached Dr. Bah’s hospital office and Ronan pushed him in the open door where Dr. Bah was closely examining his computer screen. Adam took Ronan’s hand as soon as he sat down and squeezed tightly.

He should have prepared Ronan more. They should have discussed this.

Dr. Bah continued examining the screen as they waited.

 _Please,_ Adam prayed. _Please. I can’t survive any more._

Finally, Dr. Bah leaned back from the screen and turned it to face them, but Ronan and Adam both stared at the doctor. It was dangerous to have hope from looking at scans.

“Adam, I’ve been looking at these for the past twenty minutes and it’s confirmed my initial thought after your scans.” A doughy smile broke on his face. “Mr. Parrish, I’m unable to detect any cancer cells from these images. You’re cancer free.”

The air left his withered lungs as Adam grabbed for Ronan, sobbing and laughing and trying to say words all at the same time. Energy buzzed in his chest, his lips, throughout his whole body as Ronan hugged him tightly. He didn’t even feel the side of the wheelchair digging into his ribs.

Cancer free.

Cancer fucking free.

Dr. Bah chuckled in a warm baritone as he felt wetness against his head where Ronan cried against him.

All of the chemo, all of the radiation, all of the tracers were his last.

“You did it,” Ronan whispered, cradling him close. “You fucking did it, Parrish.”

He couldn’t stop laughing. Even when his lungs started to hurt, he couldn’t stop.

It was over. It was finally over.

He could go back to school now, work something out to do online next semester while he recovered and he could convince them to let him get his degree online so he wouldn’t have to leave Ronan again. Whatever happened, he wasn’t going to leave Henrietta until everything was perfect—and maybe not even then. He’d take care of his body now, he’d eat more and sleep more and stress less.

They could get married. They could have a wedding and a life and everything Ronan wanted. Everything _he_ wanted.

“What now?” Ronan asked, Adam’s head still tucked to his chest.

“Now it’s time to celebrate,” Dr. Bah replied cheerfully. “We’ll do scans every three months to see if the cancer has come back, but even then the treatments would be much less severe. Adam just needs to continue taking his medicine, which we’ll need to reevaluate every few weeks as we wean him off dosages and build up his immune system, but this is very, very good news.”

Maybe he wasn’t so mortal after all. Maybe a magician wasn’t so fragile.

“Thank you,” Adam said with a delighted laugh. He wiped his eyes. “I’ll find a way to thank everyone somehow, I just—thank you.”

He sat back to look at Ronan, who had tears leaking from his eyes but a huge smile on his face—bigger than Adam had ever seen.

When Ronan leaned in to kiss him, Adam didn’t shy away. He let Ronan kiss his disgusting lips, tears rolling down his cheeks. For a moment it was just the two of them, valiant protector and his healed charge. Adam could taste Ronan again, and happiness.

Ronan pulled back and brushed noses with him. “You’re right, they’re disgusting,” he teased.

Adam’s cheeks flushed pink, and Ronan kissed him again.

“But I love ‘em.”

Magician or mortal, Adam would find a way to give Ronan the world if he ever asked for it. For now, he gave himself, and he had hope that it was enough.


	17. Chapter 17

Remission was a sugar-sweet liqueur drizzled into the bitterness Adam had been swallowing for the past few months. Winter seemed a lifetime ago, but it had only been six months. Worse, he hadn’t even been present for most of it. When he looked in the fridge, a completely new assortment of foods awaited him. Ronan’s eating habits had changed, and Adam didn’t even know what they were.

The world felt new to him, though his body did not.

As euphoric as it had been to hear that his cancer was gone, it didn’t fix anything immediate. Adam still woke up sick most mornings, and if he was even a few minutes late taking his pain meds his body started to unfurl. He wanted to wean himself from the medication, but that wouldn’t be a possibility for several more months, or so he was told.

What it did fix was Ronan. Remission gave Ronan new life and happiness, and Adam tried his best to match it with a body that was still failing him.

His birthday party was quickly becoming the biggest event he had ever been the star of--and almost no one was coming. Ronan was frantically making plans and having whispered phone conversations with Gansey and Blue at all hours. Ronan dreamed infinite helium for his heart-shaped balloons, cream for the inflamed skin where his port used to be, and calorie pills that tasted like milkshakes. 

Ronan had even dreamed him hair. It was a wig, technically, but a dream wig that didn’t itch or pull or collect sweat underneath. Adam had wanted hair for his party, and he felt he deserved it now that he was technically staring to grow real hair again (though it would be another five weeks before his body realized that).

On the night of his birthday party, Adam stood in the bathroom and placed the dream wig on his head. He shivered at the tingling sensation of fibers connecting to his scalp in a painless dream way. Eyebrows and eyelashes sprouted too, and a few moments later he looked like a normal Adam. Mostly. 

“Cute,” Ronan said with a kiss to his hair.

“I think this is the best thing you’ve ever dreamed,” Adam praised, bringing Ronan’s knuckles to his lips to kiss. He looked _almost_ normal, though there was an inexplicable something about his skin that still whispered _cancer_. But everyone coming to his birthday party knew he’d been half dead just a few weeks ago, so he hoped it wouldn’t be too shocking that he didn’t look completely well.

“What kind of cake do you want?” Ronan asked, looking at them both in the mirror.

“Funfetti,” Adam replied immediately. He would always want a funfetti cake, ever since he’d seen a box of mix in the dollar store as a kid and hadn’t been allowed to buy it. This would be the first year he actually had a party, and the first time he would have a cake flavor he got to pick himself. So he wanted his funfetti cake.

“Gansey should make it though,” Adam said. “Or else I’ll eat the batter.”

And undoubtedly get sick from the raw egg because his immune system was still complete shit.

“No way I’m letting that idiot make your cake. Declan’s making it,” Ronan said with a roll of his eyes. “He’s at the store right now.”

He offered his arm and Adam took it, slowly pushing himself away from where he'd been leaning on the counter.

He’d always wondered how it was possible for old people to move so slowly. How they could possibly be comfortable with the world moving so fast around them, fighting with shaking hands and legs to walk down the street to the store, but he understood now. His body simply could not move faster. To ask him to move at Ronan’s speed would be akin to asking him to become a dreamer. Possible because he had seen it, but impossible for him.

His walking was a little faster than an old person now, but not much.

“Do you wanna nap?” Ronan offered.

Adam thought about it. The party would be draining, and he would need every ounce of energy to stay awake the whole time. He didn’t want anyone to think he was as ill as he had probably been made out to be.

“When’s Gansey coming?” Adam asked.

“Fourish. Everyone else is coming at five.”

He nodded, still deciding. The right answer tugged him toward the bed, but he wanted to be stronger just this once. Just this once, he wanted to be the person Ronan would be proud of for staying awake the whole day, for surviving a party and watching the distant fireworks dotting the sky around The Barns. And tomorrow he wanted to be awake and full of life for the Lindemere Fireworks Celebration on his actual birthday that he would spend just with Ronan.

“I should nap,” he relented. Not today.

“Couch or bed?” Ronan asked, his fingers gently rubbing at the small of his back. Adam knew the sensation was hurting, but he couldn’t feel it so he didn’t ask Ronan to stop.

“Bed,” Adam said. “Wake me up before Gansey gets here so I can get dressed. I’ll keep the wig on.”

Ronan’s smile was full of rare pride. Adam’s lips were softer now, so he didn’t hesitate before pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth.

He crawled slowly onto the mattress, finding his place among the bedding. Ronan tucked him in with kisses and promises to wake him with plenty of time to get ready, then slipped into bed beside him. Adam held his hand until sleep gently tugged him away.

He woke in a dark room with yellow walls. He couldn’t actually _see_ the walls, but he knew they were yellow. Children’s toys scattered the floor: a wooden rocking horse, a toy truck on its side, dolls strewn, and stuffed animals toppled. He smiled, recognizing the place though he had never seen it before. He rested his back against the wall and inhaled, and his lungs filled with the blue glitter of Lindenmere.

He heard the sounds of running feet in the hallway outside the room, two girls squealing and laughing. It filled his heart with warmth. He heard his father scold them lovingly, and smelled spaghetti cooking in the kitchen and knew his mother was making it.

When he looked at the room again, it was different. Two twin beds sat on either wall to frame a large window with pink pinstripe curtains. A nightlight glowed under the windowsill, shaped like a sleeping crescent moon. A boy in pajamas slept peacefully on it and his legs dangled out over plastic stars.

A little girl sat on the edge of one of the beds, bouncing her feet against the frame. Every so often she peered out the window. Her hair glowed white in the light, and Adam thought maybe she was an elf, but her large ears were rounded, not pointed. After a moment, he noticed had dark paper in her hands and was flexing the cardstock wings of a raven.

Adam stood up, still cloaked in shadow. He’d seen this raven before, its fletched wings and gaping beak.

“Who made that?” he asked, stepping toward her.

The girl turned to him with a bright sunshine smile.

“You did,” she replied.

Adam smiled back, remembering now. He felt for the door behind him and cracked it open, spilling warm light into the room.

“Goodnight,” he told the girl, whose name came to his lips but he couldn’t speak it.

“Night night,” she replied, blowing him a kiss. Blue Lindenmere glitter smoked from her lips, a shining, glittering heart in the shape of one of Ronan’s balloons drifted toward him. He leaned into it and let the glitter break over his face.

Adam woke to Ronan gently shaking him awake, and he smiled reflexively.

“Good dreams?” Ronan asked. He was wearing a very handsome black t-shirt with an interesting fit—too large at the shoulders but hugging his middle. His belt was a clipped seatbelt, his pants the same ripped black denim he always wore. Ronan’s version of dressed up, excluding his church suit that Adam always wanted to rip off him.

“Do I have any glitter on me?” Adam joked, arms wrapping around Ronan’s neck and giving a tug.

“No glitter. Just some nice-ass hair,” Ronan replied in his savagely handsome way.

Their lips met for a kiss—gentle, sweet, and luxuriously long. He still didn’t let Ronan use tongue, (they could only tempt his immune system so much—though he knew it really didn’t make a difference) but the feel of his lips was better than any good dream.

They kissed for some time, until Adam had to turn his face to breathe. He was healing, and kisses like those just sped it along faster.

“Gansey’s coming,” Ronan murmured, nosing his jaw. “I got you a mask. Get dressed before he starts thinking he can pick your outfit.”

Adam had selected his birthday outfit deliberately. Just enough color to portray health, but not so much that it looked like he was overcompensating. A soft white t-shirt and an open button-down that was more seafoam than sky blue that hung on him to show the weight he had gained and not the jaggedness of his collarbones. His pants were a pair of sophisticated grey chinos that struck the perfect middle ground of both Gansey and Ronan’s approval. He looked more like the person he thought he would be at this point in his life: a Harvard freshman home for summer break.

He picked his “nice casual shoes” to wear—bright white, unsmudged sneakers that he thought told of his immaculate fashion sense and less about the fact that he almost never wore them at all.

He thought he looked like a pretty damn good birthday boy.

After he was dressed, he took his afternoon medications with water and one of Ronan’s calorie pills and headed down the stairs on his own just as Gansey pulled into the drive.

“Mask,” Ronan said at the base of the stairs, handing over the facemask. It was white with gold font that read HAPPY BIRTHDAY in block lettering across the mouth. The perfect mix of ridiculous and endearing. Exactly what a birthday party facemask should be.

Adam gave him a kiss on the cheek before he slipped the elastic bands around his ears, and laughed when he noticed that it smelled like oranges inside. A dream mask, of course.

Gansey appeared in the doorway with his arms loaded down with reusable bags full of food and decorations, including a bunch of sticks and twigs that had Opal tackling his legs before Ronan or Adam could reach him.

Ronan took the bags and stopped Gansey with his foot before he could hug Adam.

“Wash your hands. Party masks are in the kitchen.”

“Hi, Gansey,” Adam greeted, smiling wide.

He hung back, waiting until Gansey had taken the proper steps and reentered the foyer with a masked face and clean hands.

“Parrish,” Gansey finally greeted, arms wrapping around him for a hug. “I see you have hair again.”

“Dreamers are useful sometimes,” Adam joked, winking at Ronan over Gansey’s shoulder.

“Quite the outfit too. Striking, Adam. I can see the Harvard boy in you.”

Gansey still hadn’t let go of him. Adam didn’t mind it. The hug was nice for him too, and he even leaned his head to rest against Gansey’s for a moment, the lightness and warmth of his strange dream still floating in his blood.

“I missed you, Gansey,” Adam said, remembering how much he liked to say his name.

“God, I promise I missed you more,” Gansey laughed, finally pulling back. Happy tears had collected in his eyes, and he patted Adam’s shoulder gently. “You look so much better already.”

“Opioids do wonders." Dr. Bah hadn’t been able to keep them off his regimen after all, but it didn’t really matter.

“It appears so.” Gansey’s grin couldn’t be contained behind the mask. “Blue is coming in an hour, with Maura. They thought she was the safest psychic to bring along, for Ronan’s sake.”

“I heard that,” Ronan called from the kitchen.

“And you’re not denying it,” Gansey called back.

Adam nudged Gansey toward the kitchen to find that Ronan had donned a black face mask for himself and was preparing chips and dip. The microwave was humming, and Adam could smell queso melting.

“A little early for the chip bowls, I think,” Adam chuckled.

Ronan shot him a look. “Half the party’s already here, Parrish.”

He was nervous. Adam could see it in the way he focused on the knife as he chopped onions for pico de gallo. Adam rested his cheek against Ronan’s shoulder, smiling when he felt him still for a moment, then sigh.

“I already love you,” Adam reminded him softly. “This party is only gonna make me love you more, even if the house burns down.”

The knife hit the cutting board again, then didn’t move. Adam wound his arms around Ronan’s middle, holding him there. He could tell when Ronan was on the verge of tears, even when he couldn’t see his face.

“I didn’t think you’d have a birthday,” he said quietly.

“I know.”

“You weren’t supposed to have one.”

“That’s what you get for not planning,” Adam teased, giving him a gentle squeeze.

Ronan turned to him and collected him in his arms. “You were so sick.”

“I know.” _I’m not better yet,_ he wanted to add, but he didn’t. “But here we are. Technically it’s not my birthday so I could still—”

“Adam.”

He smiled, nestling into Ronan’s chest.

They stood like that for a while, even as Chainsaw cawed angrily at Gansey in the living room and Opal’s hooves skittered across hardwood as she undoubtedly stole Gansey’s decorative sticks and Gansey was undoubtedly too polite to scold her for it.

“Let’s have a party,” Adam finally said. “Okay?”

Ronan nodded, looking down at him through his pretty dark lashes. “Okay.”


	18. Chapter 18

Adam had been to a couple of birthday parties at Harvard, where expensive alcohol flowed more freely in honors dorms than it did at frat houses. Most parties for newly minted twenty year-olds included more drugs and alcohol than any other kind. Most were loud, with reckless stunts and maybe police interference if it was truly legendary. But Adam’s party was the one he had wanted far more than any of that: he was surrounded by his family, his soulmate, his best friends, and unexpected ones. Cheng appeared with Blue in a surprise visit, and Maura brought fresh pumpkin bread from a farmers market-- Blue assured had not been cooked at Fox Way.

They shared stories, devoured chips and dip (Adam even dared to have some himself) and Ronan was praised for his pico de gallo. Adam stayed awake without issue, laughed at jokes, laughed at silly stories Cheng shared about his adventures in South American fashion.

He noticed Ronan’s eyes wandering to Blue’s simple-yet-dazzling engagement ring and tried not to think about it. As much as he wanted marriage and a normal life, he wanted to be healthy before Ronan proposed. He wanted to be sure he was really in remission, that the cancer wouldn’t come back in a few months and strip all of this excitement away.

It was stupid and he knew it, but his decision stayed. He wanted to be better before he had a ring on his finger.

Ronan and Gansey made a quiet exit, and Adam couldn’t stop smiling behind his mask. He knew that meant his cake was on the way. He hadn’t seen it yet, but Declan had seemed proud of it when he presented the box to Ronan at the front door—Declan was in a good mood, and Matthew was ecstatic. He and Cheng were fast friends, and Maura and Declan had found a surprising amount of things to talk about it for two people so different.

Blue came to sit beside him after Ronan left, and Adam found himself immediately calmed by her presence. He hadn’t been this close to her in some time and nearly jolted in surprise when she took his hand between her own.

Maura looked over at them and smiled around her mask with sadness in her eyes. Declan paused his discussion about the existence of fairies to look at them too, momentarily confused.

“Anyway, where were we?” Maura prompted, eyes turning back to Declan. “ _I_ think we attribute butterfly wings because we want fairies to be light and harmless. They’re not, I assure you.”

“Tell me that wasn’t a look of her wishing we were something we’re not,” Adam said, looking up at Blue where she sat on the armrest.

Blue laughed. “No, no. But it is pity—sorry.”

Adam nodded. He wasn’t as offended by pity as he had been before.

“That’s a very pretty ring,” he said, looking down at their hands. His fingers were even thinner than hers. Smoother too. His callouses had withered down to nothing, leaving only baby-soft skin behind. Skin that cracked and dried if he didn’t use his hand cream religiously.

Blue’s ring twinkled in the low light of the living room, a single diamond held in place by tiny silver talons. The stone looked strange, though, and Adam lifted her hand to examine it more closely.

“It’s a rough diamond,” she explained. “Ethically sourced. Actually ethically sourced. It was found a few years ago in a diamond mine in Arizona, but it was so fractured they couldn’t cut it. It was at the gift shop Gansey and I visited on our way to the Grand Canyon—one of those ridiculous things on display that no one is supposed to actually buy.”

Adam laughed. That sounded like Gansey. “I didn’t get to see his, did you get him a diamond?”

She rolled her eyes, but it was undeniably fond. “No. He’d lose it or knock it off, probably. I thought about quartz or something, but instead I just found a pretty looking band at a flea market and bought that. Thirty-five dollars.”

“Good deal,” he replied with a nod.

It was always nice to talk to Blue, to talk to someone who spoke the values still ingrained in him: to save, to brag about saving, to remember costs.

He watched Mathew’s hands fly up in the retelling of a story he couldn’t hear and Cheng’s eyes go wide in kind.

“I’m glad you guys are here,” Adam found himself saying.

Blue looked down at him, trying to read his gaze. “Of course we’re here. For you and for your emo boyfriend.”

She suddenly looked up, and her cheeks lifted behind her mask as her smile widened.

Adam looked over just in time to see Gansey rounding the corner with a beautiful cake packed to the rim with candles. Ronan hovered just behind him with Chainsaw nervously balanced on his shoulder, watching the flames.

“ _Happy birthday to you,”_ Gansey began, and Adam laughed sheepishly through the rest of the song as the rest of the guests joined in, slipping off his mask once the cake was in front of him, the little flames warming his face. He saw only smiling faces looking down at him: Ronan with Opal hugging his leg and Chainsaw on his shoulder, Gansey, Blue, Noah, Cheng, Maura, Declan, and Matthew. They were all here to celebrate the birthday that wasn’t supposed to happen. They were all here providing the same love and support he had felt throughout his treatment, even if he hadn’t seen most of them.

He thought of the nightlight in his dream, of the boy peacefully sleeping on the crescent moon, surrounded by the stars.

 _I want to stay here and be happy,_ he wished, momentarily entranced by the dancing candleflames. The urge to scry tugged his consciousness at the sight of them, but instead he drew in a breath with cancer-free lungs and blew out. He didn’t get all the candles the first time, but Opal helped and soon they were clear.

The small gathering cheered, and Adam took time to look over the craftsmanship of the cake.

“Is it buttercream frosting?” Adam asked, tilting his head to look at the smooth sides. Gansey hurried over to grab it, all too eager with his cake knife.

“That’s right,” Declan said proudly. “Vanilla buttercream—I made a few edits to the funfetti mix too, it tastes really good.”

“Thanks, Declan,” Adam said, smiling up at him. “It looks delicious. Best birthday cake I’ve ever had.”

Ronan slid his mask down under his jaw to give him a birthday kiss, and Adam threw his arms around Ronan’s neck and pulled him down, his head coming to rest in Blue’s lap. She didn’t seem to mind, though she did flick Ronan’s head after a few moments. He flipped her the bird.

“First slice for the honored guest!” Gansey announced, effectively breaking their kiss to hand Adam a small slice of cake and a fork to eat it with.

He delicately severed a piece—equal parts cake and frosting—and took his first bite. Sugary sweetness enveloped his tongue, chilled to the perfect temperature, melting to cream in his mouth. His face lit up without him realizing it, and he let out a hum of delight.

“This is amazing, Declan,” he gushed—yes, gushed. It was an incredible work of dessert.

Ronan was the only one allowed to eat cake with him because of his immune system, so Adam ate it quickly, eager to give everyone the chance to try it. 

“Okay, I’ve tortured everyone enough,” Adam laughed when he was finished a few moments later. He wasn’t allowed to have a full sized piece. He set his plate in his lap and pulled his mask back on once Blue assured him he’d gotten all of the frosting off of his lips.

Once Gansey and Ronan had handed out plates to everyone, Declan became the momentary star as his baking skills were praised, and he looked a thousand times happier than Adam had ever seen him. Ronan even gave him a congratulatory shove.

“Ronan hasn’t been a dick, has he?” Matthew asked, climbing onto the armrest of Adam’s chair once Blue had wandered into the kitchen to help Gansey with the cake cutting.

Adam shook his head. “No way, he’s been perfect.”

That seemed to make Matthew proud.

“That’s a nice wig, by the way. Did you get the paste-on eyebrows?”

“Thank you,” Adam said. He reached up to smooth a finger over one of his eyebrows. “Ronan got me the eyebrows, I don’t know what kind they are.”

Matthew peered closer. “They look real. My eyes hurt just looking at them.”

Dream things always did.

“Thanks for coming, by the way,” Adam said. He never quite knew how to interact with Matthew. He was a teenager now, but had the vibrance of a baby, the disarming cuteness of a toddler, and the sharp mind of a Lynch.

“Duh. You’re basically my brother already, of course we’re coming for your birthday,” Matthew replied.

Adam warmed immediately, and he wished he knew what siblings were supposed to do when they were complimented. Instead, he just said, “Thanks anyway, Matthew.”

That was when the first lurch came.

Adam jerked involuntarily, one hand going to his stomach, the other to his mouth.

Matthew’s eyes went wide. “Adam?”

_Don’t throw up don’t throw up don’t throw up._

Adam squeezed his eyes shut as bile inched up his throat, taunting him.

His world went mute as he tried to block out whatever stimulation was causing him to suddenly feel sick. He heard Ronan’s muffled voice, then grimaced when Ronan lifted him and headed outside. He heard the groan of the screen door opening and felt the humidity hit his cheeks. 

“Breathe,” Ronan urged, sitting down on the porch swing with Adam across his lap.

Adam sucked in a breath when Ronan pulled his mask off. The cool night air caressed his face and the nausea subsided, allowing him to feel mostly normal again.

“I’m okay,” he said weakly.

“Did you smell something?” Ronan asked, feeling his forehead.

Adam shook his head. “Everything was fine. I think it was just a weird reaction.”

“Your face went all white, Parrish,” Ronan murmured, pulling his own mask off.

“Maybe I’m tired.” He didn’t feel tired. “Or maybe the cake was just too much sugar or something. I feel fine now.” He was a little shaky, but he was fine.

Gansey appeared at the screen door. “Adam?”

“He’s okay,” Ronan said, stroking his hair.

“Oh, good.” Gansey sounded relieved. “I think it’s time to watch fireworks anyway. What do you say?”

“Bring everyone out,” Adam said before Ronan could protest. “Let’s watch.”

It wasn’t long before they were set up in the field, Gansey’s decorative sticks creating centerpieces on some picnic blankets. Adam’s blanket had a mess of cushions for him to rest on, and he curled against Ronan, thankful for his body heat.

Lazy conversation filled the night air as they waited and if he closed his eyes he could pretend it was any other summer. The summer it should have been, with Ronan.

A screeching rocket signaled the start of the fireworks. Everyone quieted to watch as th sky exploded into a starburst of sparks. Adam felt Ronan tense just slightly, and he knew he was thinking about Kavinsky. Adam thought about him too, though with much less regret than Ronan. He hadn’t known Kavinsky all that well, and he believed that if there were bad dreamers, Kavinsky was one of them. He’d felt the strain on the ley line from all of the enormous and fantastical things Kavinsky dreamed and haphazardly destroyed. But the fireworks had always been nice.

Blues, reds, and brilliant whites burst in the distance as they watched. The Barns wasn’t the best vantage point for the town fireworks, but no one seemed to mind. Blue had her fingers linked with Gansey’s and her head resting on Maura’s hip, her mother’s fingers carding through her hair.

The next blanket over, Matthew was on his back with his hands clasped behind his head while Declan took the civilized position of sitting upright, though he pointed out particularly beautiful explosions to his little brother with childlike wonder. Cheng laid with them, silent and smiling.

That was when Adam felt the second lurch.

This time his vision warped, spinning a firework into a kaleidoscope across his vision as he sat bolt upright. His stomach wrenched in warning, and he simultaneously started sweating and freezing over at the same time.

“Adam.” Ronan’s voice was a warning.

Adam closed his eyes and nodded, trying to breathe.

“Dick,” Ronan called to Gansey. “Parrish needs his night meds. Check your phone.”

Ronan scooped him up in his arms. Declan looked over at them, watching cautiously as Ronan carried Adam down the hill. Adam shut his eyes again, not wanting to look.

When they were out of sight, Ronan broke into a jog, doing his best not to jostle him. Adam clung to his last reserves of strength, digging his fingers into his cheeks and lips to stop himself from coming undone.

“Just hold it a little longer,” Ronan soothed, kicking open the screen door. “Almost there, babe.”

He rushed Adam to the bathroom and they hit the tile just in time for Adam to sit up and spew funfetti pico de gallo all over the inside of the bathtub.

He thoughtlessly sobbed once, disappointed and angry at himself for missing the toilet, even though he knew that was irrational.

At least his vomit looked mostly pleasant, like some kind of funfetti milkshake, though it smelled awful.

Ronan rubbed his back and Adam heaved again, forcing out mostly digested tortilla chips, more cake, and more pico. His stomach wrung itself, and he coughed up more stomach acid, nearly choking on it when his inhale met another dry heave on the way down.

Throwing up usually came with some relief, but this time he felt worse. He was shaking and sweating, his body wracked with discomfort.

He flinched when Ronan pushed the handheld thermometer into his ear, his outgoing call tone just loud enough for Adam to hear in the small space.

“Hey, it’s Ronan Lynch.”

The thermometer beeped and it was removed from his ear.

“Adam had some birthday cake tonight and now it’s all over the bathtub, if that’s what you mean,” Ronan said into the phone. “His temperature is a hundred. Should I take him to the emergency room?”

Adam slumped against the edge of the tub, his chest aching around the scar tissue where his port used to be. Ronan kept rubbing his back and Adam didn’t have the words to tell him to stop.

“Ro—” He lurched again, somehow finding more phlegm to spit up. His throat burned. He didn’t want to go to the emergency room.

“Yeah, we still have some,” Ronan said. “Adam, I’m gonna go upstairs to get you the medicine you need. Is that okay or do you need me to get Gansey to do it?”

Adam’s head was spinning. He heard Ronan’s question but could barely sit up, let alone respond.

“I’m gonna call you back.” He heard Ronan messing with his phone, but that part of his brain was far away now. “Dick, get down here. Don’t make a scene.”

Adam panted into the tub, trying to regain some sense of self. Instead his stomach kept buckling and he had to fight just to breathe at all between heaves.

Any energy he had was quickly leaving him.

He flopped his hand toward Ronan, and Ronan took it, squeezing tight. “I’ve got you.”

Gansey stumbled into the doorway. “What—Oh, Adam.”

This was the accurate picture of remission, Adam decided. Doubled over the rim of the bathtub, puking up birthday cake with all of his guests oblivious outside. Defeated on his one special day.

Ronan stood up, speaking in a low voice to relay instructions.

Adam gurgled out something close to Ronan’s name before he was vomiting again, though his stomach had nothing left to give.

“— _now_ ,” Ronan hissed, and Gansey ran off without a word.

Adam’s vision was darkening. He must have made some kind of sound because then Ronan was there, gently pulling the dream wig from his scalp to allow more air to move over his skin. His head felt suddenly heavy, and there was fuzzy pain in his jaw but he didn’t know why.

When he inhaled he smelled chlorine, and the world fuzzed again.

He saw the paper raven with cardstock wings, the little girl saying _“you made it.”_

The raven took flight, then blurred, morphing and twisting until it became something else entirely: Ronan’s tattoo.

The house was quiet around them, but not uninhabited. He could hear voices murmuring beyond and saw yellow light flickering as bodies passed in front of the door. It was much darker now, an indeterminate amount of time lost to him in a matter of moments.

Ronan was cross legged on the floor, his back facing him, his shirt gone. The room smelled faintly of the only all-natural cleaner Adam could inhale without immediately falling ill. Though he couldn’t see Ronan’s hands, he knew by the bend in his neck and curve of his spine that he was chewing on his bracelets.

Adam realized he was lying on the tile floor in the downstairs bathroom. His cheek still ached in one spot he didn’t remember hitting, but he felt much better.

“Ronan,” he rasped.

Ronan stopped chewing his bracelets and turned his head to look at him, contorting his tattoo to some other shape entirely.

“Yeah?”

“Why’m I on the floor?”

Ronan turned around completely. “You don’t remember?”

“Not really. Why’s my face hurt?”

“You whacked your head on the tub and pretty much passed out,” Ronan said. “Dr. Bah told me not to put you in the car, and Gansey and I gave you the anti-seizure and anti-nausea meds.”

Adam sat up on his elbows, blinking in the low light. Ronan looked awful.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

Ronan looked away. “I had to force you to take them.”

“Ronan,” Adam said softly. He sat up completely, putting his arms around him. His head still felt heavy, but his throat didn’t burn and his body didn’t ache too terribly. “I’m glad you did, I feel so much better.”

“I hate doing that,” Ronan whispered against his bald head.

“I know,” Adam murmured, nosing into Ronan’s collarbone. “Who’s still here?”

“Gansey and Blue. Matthew’s asleep on the couch, Declan helped clean everything up. I didn’t tell him you puked up his cake.”

Adam smiled weakly. “Good. Sorry I missed my party.”

“Nah, you were around for all of the good parts. Everything else was pretty boring.”

“Where’s my wig?”

“In the sink,” Ronan said, looking up. “Didn’t want to get puke on it.”

“So what now?” Adam asked, staring at the shaft of light bleeding into the bathroom.

“Well, you’ve gotta be fucking careful with the sugar intake, apparently,” Ronan said, one arm looping around him. “And I’m picking up a new prescription for you tomorrow. You have to stay in bed for a few days, Parrish.”

Adam pulled back, his brow creasing. “What? But Lindenmere—”

“We’ll go this weekend,” Ronan assured him.

“That’s not my birthday, though.”

“Well, I’m not risking your fucking life to see some fireworks at Lindenmere that we can see any time,” Ronan said with finality.

Adam was too tired to be frustrated. He knew it was the right choice, even if he didn’t like it at all. Another few days away from Lindenmere would be torture. He longed to feel like himself again, to scry and be the person he was behind all of the sickness.

“I’m tired,” Adam said. An understatement. In reality, the exhaustion was crushing the air from his mottled lungs.

“Okay, time for bed then. I’ll sent the maggot and her fuckboy home.” Ronan kissed his temple. “Can you stand?”

The question alone made him dizzy. Adam shook his head.

He tucked himself into Ronan’s chest as he was lifted, heavy enough now that Ronan let out a grunt when he hoisted him up off the ground, narrowly avoiding the sink. Adam’s eyes fell closed before they even made it out of the threshold, but he heard the relieved noises of his remaining partygoers.

“Parrish says goodnight,” Ronan said, his voice rumbling in Adam’s ear.

Gansey touched his arm--he could tell it was Gansey just by the perfect amount of pressure and feeling behind it.

“Glad to see you’re feeling better,” Gansey said.

Blue’s touch was feather light. “We’ll see you soon, Adam.”

“G’night,” Adam whispered, but he couldn’t find the strength to open his eyes.

Ronan carried him up the stairs as Adam listened to each heartbeat, each breath.

“Is someone else here?” Adam asked.

“No, just Declan and Matthew,” Ronan said. “Cheng left with Maura. He couldn’t come in the house. Vomit makes him vomit I guess. Loser.”

Adam tried to count everyone in his mind. “Mm. Right. Biggest birthday party’ve ever had. Best, too.”

Ronan set him on the bed. He hated how every good day always ended with Ronan having to carry him to bed because his body couldn’t hold itself up. Ronan helped him undress from the mattress and Adam put his head on the pillow.

“Happy birthday,” Ronan whispered, kissing his cheek. “ _Tamquam_ —”

“— _alter idem_ ,” Adam replied, half asleep. “Dream me a good present.”

Ronan covered him with a blanket. “Whatever you want, it’s yours.”

Ronan kissed his lips, but Adam only felt the beginning of it. He dropped into sleep, and when Ronan pulled away he was the glitter of Lindenmere, whirling blue and beautiful.

He saw Gansey there, unmasked and smiling. Sparkling plumes swirled at his feet like a waiting charge. It reminded him of That Summer, of Henrietta nights chasing Glendower and finding love. Dancing around Ronan’s looks, saving the world, saving themselves from monotony. This Gansey was the wild one Adam had followed to the brink of death. It was hard to imagine him settling for engagement rings and constructs of the world, just as it was hard to imagine that the Adam who had gone with him would settle for Harvard and fall in love with a boy who didn’t know how to flirt worth a damn.

“You aren’t Gansey anymore,” Adam said.

Gansey turned his head to the stars and laughed merrily.


	19. Chapter 19

“No,” Ronan said from where he stood at the kitchen sink, cleaning off their dinner dishes. “You’re supposed to be on bedrest for three days. You aren’t even allowed to go for a ride in the BMW, Adam. I’m not letting you scry into a dream with me.”

Adam made a noise of disagreement from the living room where he was watching Jeopardy. Every so often Ronan heard him answer before the contestants, usually correctly. He let himself wonder if Adam would have been one of those guys who made it onto the show and became a champion. He would finally make a name for himself on a stage obscure enough that his dreamer boyfriend wouldn’t come into the spotlight. Soon to be dreamer fiancé, if Ronan had anything to say about it.

Adam wanted to wait to make sure the cancer was gone, but Ronan didn’t. He hated looking at Blue and Gansey’s rings and not being able to show off one on Adam’s finger. But he hadn’t been the one to survive lung cancer, so he didn’t get to decide.

He tried not to get mopey about it.

“I could scry from bed,” Adam offered. “Or we can set up a pillow fort in here for some ambiance.”

Ronan considered the idea. A little smile came to his face as he imagined soft light on Adam’s face, hung sheets and pillows framing his recovering body. Adam looked best surrounded by comfort and warmth. It suited him far better than it did Ronan.

“I concede to the pillow fort,” Ronan replied as he set the dishes in the rack to dry.

“I didn’t hear a concession to scrying.”

“Because there wasn’t one.”

He wiped his hands on his jeans and headed back into the living room. Adam was crumpled on the couch, swallowed in an obscenely oversized hoodie (his), baggy sweats (also his), and a pair of fuzzy socks Blue had gifted him. Adam had been passed out in the bathroom when they were supposed to open birthday gifts, so he’d opened them that morning. Christmas in July or whatever.

“How are you feeling?” Ronan asked pressing his palm to Adam’s forehead. It felt normal.

“I feel fine,” Adam protested. “Move, you’re blocking the screen.”

“ _Kerah!_ ” Chainsaw echoed from the mantel.

Ronan lifted his hands in surrender and stepped aside to plop on the couch next to his boyfriend.

As Jeopardy continued, Ronan weighed the pros and cons of Adam following him into Lindenmere. It would be safer to dream something from the house than actually in the forest, where whatever he thought up wouldn’t attack the real Adam and injure his already fragile body.

And it was Adam’s birthday—his real birthday. And so far all he had done was sleep and eat a forkful of Declan’s cake. Opening presents had been the most pathetically lonely thing Ronan had ever fucking seen. He deserved better. He deserved the world.

“Do you actually feel strong enough to scry?” Ronan asked. “Actually, Adam. Don’t bullshit me.”

That got Adam’s attention. His head emerged a little further from the pile of sweatshirt pooled on his chest.

“I think I can handle fireworks and Lindenmere. I’m strongest on the ley line, remember. Like you.”

A dreamer and his magician. Intertwined in ways Ronan didn’t yet know, but hoped to find out someday. Cancer had given him a perspective on just how long life was when it wasn’t being clipped short by a disease. They were kids. They still had all of their twenties to be kids before anyone except Declan expected them to be adults.

He supposed he understood why Adam wanted to wait to get engaged when he thought about it like that, but in Ronan’s mind he simply figured _why wait?_ Why put off the inevitable? They weren’t typical young adults puttering through their formative years. They had access to a world unknown. Ronan couldn’t show it to anyone else and he didn’t want to.

“I get that,” Ronan finally said. “But you have a habit of not taking stock of what’s actually wrong with you.”

“I’m perfectly aware of what’s wrong with me,” Adam snapped, but it held no weight.

Ronan decided to change tack. “I just mean this isn’t something to tough through. If you get lost in there I don’t know if you’d survive getting pulled back.”

“I know how it works,” Adam reminded him. “I can do it. If we spent an hour or two in Lindenmere it’d be a lot less than that in real time. It’s a risk, but so is taking a nap. I’d say they’re about the same.”

He wasn’t so sure about that. A nap was restorative. Scrying wasn’t natural and separated Adam’s soul from his body or some weird shit Ronan didn’t understand.

“I need to go, Ronan,” Adam said a little quieter. “It’s pulling me. Like when you don’t dream.”

His nostrils flared reflexively, as though nightwash would come seeping from him just from being mentioned.

He felt the decision move within him, an uncomfortable monster shifting in its sleep to settle in him new. Now he could feel it too, a part of himself being squeezed tighter. Adam needed to go, and soon. _Or else._ He didn’t know what or else meant, but it waded there in the murk unspoken.

“Fine,” said Ronan, folding his arms. “We’ll set up a pillow tent in the backyard. If anything starts feeling weird, pull out.”

Adam grinned at him. “Pull out—”

“Shut up.”

Adam grinned wider.

* * *

Lindenmere greeted them joyfully. Birds sang nighttime melodies as they flittered from branch to branch, feathers glowing in the moonlight. Summer air curled over Ronan’s skin as he held Adam’s hand and waded through the long grass.

_Magician, magician._

The trees were weeping with soft joy that made Ronan feel like they were both kings here. Lindenmere was close enough to their real bodies that he felt especially powerful and Adam seemed to feel it too.

Fuck, he was beautiful.

Where Lindenmere couldn’t eradicate the cancer, it could take away the effects of it while they were here. Adam was grinning—he had a sharper jaw than Ronan remembered from Christmas. His sweatshirt now clung to sculpted muscle, like this alternate Adam was hitting the nerd gym at Harvard. He doubted Harvard even had gyms with so many dweebs on campus.

For all of the maturity in Adam’s body, the biggest difference was the youth in his being. This picturesque Adam was free from the stress of impending death, the experimental medications, chemo and radiation. He had fire in his eyes, something warm and burning that Ronan wanted to sear himself with.

“I forgot how striking it is,” Adam breathed, gazing up at the trees.

Ronan watched him close his eyes and stepped closer, oddly intimidated by the beauty of the man before him. This wasn’t the Adam he knew anymore. It felt almost like cheating, even though this was still his boyfriend.

“You don’t need to look like this, you know,” Ronan said, looping his arms around Adam’s waist.

Adam didn’t open his eyes. “I want to look like this. I don’t want you to ever have to look at the current me sitting in the backyard.”

“I love the you sitting in the backyard.” Ronan tilted his head to kiss Adam’s neck. His skin was still warm from sun. Ronan buried his nose in it, overcome with the desire to be enveloped in Adam’s body, to feel this warmth all over.

But he’d made a promise.

“Come on,” he said against Adam’s collarbone. He pulled away and led Adam to a fantastically large clearing where the trees stretched as high as Sequoias and the ground was a carpet of soft grass that acted like memory foam beneath their feet. Soft blankets soon covered a section of ground as Ronan shucked off his boots and created the most romantic fireworks viewing spot he could dream up. Candles glowed around them, pools of light that reflected from the gurgling brooks and searching tree roots of their little enclave.

Adam laughed, but he was blushing. “You’re getting better at this.”

“Shut up. I’ve got nothing else to do all day.”

He stepped onto the plush comforter and sat down while Adam unlaced his sneakers and set them aside. Dumbass. Lindenmere didn’t care if he untied his damn shoes.

Ronan laid back on the blanket and extended an arm, open his palm to invite Adam to lie down with him.

Adam stared down at him through his lashes, his golden hair tousled like a fucking beach shoot for GQ. Ronan wiggled his fingers insistently.

“These fireworks are gonna start going off without—”

Adam was on top of him so fast Ronan could have sworn he dreamed it, but then sunkissed lips were on his and they were so, so real. The strength behind Adam’s mouth was debilitating for someone who had become accustomed to him barely being able to stand up. Ronan had no hope of resisting as Adam’s tongue slipped past his lips, as his hands smoothed over the flat of his stomach.

With one thought, all of their clothing was gone. It was a cheap shot, really, but they _were_ on a time constraint in some sense. Adam grunted in surprise, but only stopped for a half a second before his body was everywhere.

Ronan hadn’t even moved his hands from the goddamn ground before Adam rolled him over onto his belly.

“The fuck are you—” He cut himself off with a strangled little noise as Adam’s mouth started at his neck. Getting his tattoo had been something to piss Declan off: the darkest ink taking up the most of his body that it could. He wasn’t even sure he’d gone to a real tattoo parlor or just dreamed it and blew the nine hundred on something else. Nine hundred for a tattoo this size with all of the intricacies his had seemed way too cheap for the quality.

But he remembered that it hurt like hell, aching and burning for weeks in the way he’d wanted then. Just like he’d wanted Declan’s anger and Gansey’s disappointment.

Now he just had Adam’s hands and mouth running over every line. He’d been a virgin before he met Adam, contrary to what his own brothers and probably his friends believed. Gansey never asked and Adam knew full well that a boy whose first kiss was with his friend in his childhood bedroom in the middle of the night was definitely a virgin loser. Now he felt like one all over again as Adam pulled him apart with his tongue.

“Parrish, if you expect me to fuck a goddamn blanket and make out with a pillow—”

He didn’t have time to finish before Adam was flipping him over again. Ronan moved himself up to an elbow and finally used his goddamn hands, nesting his fingers in Adam’s curls and holding him still.

They still weren’t particularly good at this. Dream sex was easier because they never had to worry about practical things like preparation, and release was always fucking amazing. But it never lasted into waking up and instead left an insatiable ache in him that he couldn’t satisfy.

This time though, it would be absolutely worth it.

Ronan didn’t know when the fireworks at started, but they were still going by the time he collapsed back into the comforter, slick with sweat and breathing hard. Adam panted beside him, his hair a complete mess and his body glistening in the moonlight in a way that made Ronan shut his eyes to avoid being overcome.

“Can’t fucking wait to do that for real,” Ronan breathed.

A firework explosion made the ground tremble beneath him. Yes, they’d definitely been going for awhile, he remembered now. That was the other problem with dream sex: afterward it became just as easy to lose the experience as it was to lose a dream.

“Soon,” Adam purred.

_Oh hell._ Ronan opened his eyes again and moved closer, curling against Adam’s broad chest. He smelled like sex and sunlight. Adam kissed his hair.

“You need a buzz, Lynch.”

Ronan smiled dopily. He didn’t know if he’d ever been this happy before. “You can give me one.”

Adam tipped his head up and Ronan kissed his lips without any exhaustion in his limbs. Bonelessness had faded and turned to the same hum of energy he got after a long day in the garden or moving sleeping cows.

He pulled Adam on top of him, kissing him lovingly, desperately, sadly. It still felt like cheating in some way. He wanted to kiss the real Adam like this, but he wouldn’t let him.

“Ronan,” Adam whispered against his mouth with swollen lips. “It’s me.”

Adam kissed him and Ronan returned it without thinking. That was probably the idea.

“I think I should get back to you,” he murmured, nosing at his cheek. He wrapped his arms tight around him, squeezing tighter than he needed to because he could. This Adam wouldn’t break.

“I’m right here,” Adam replied, tucking his face into Ronan’s neck.

“You know what I mean. Real you is probably about to have a heat stroke.”

“I feel so much better here,” Adam said quietly.

For some reason, that made Ronan hurt. The trees whispered, the grass bent in a chilly breeze. He tried so hard to make Adam comfortable in their real life. He did the things he didn’t want to—like forcing pills down Adam’s throat and putting a hand over his mouth as he struggled until he swallowed them down so he wouldn’t have a seizure at his birthday party and die.

He wanted that Adam to look like this one, to be this one. 

Someday.

“We need to get back,” Ronan said.

Adam feathered kisses over his face, half a dozen or more. “Okay. Get back, then. I love you.”

Ronan squeezed him again, soaking in this feeling of warmth and love the current Adam could not give. “I love you too. You feel okay?”

“I feel perfect,” Adam laughed, pulling back.

“Okay.” Ronan kissed him one last time, desperation leaking in before he could stop it. “Love you.”

“You said that already,” Adam said with a grin. “I love you too.”

Ronan smiled devilishly. “Love you.”

Adam rolled his eyes.

Ronan closed his, smiling.

_Wake up._

Spinning into consciousness wasn’t as violent as it usually was. Being so close to Lindenmere and having Adam as a tether tended to do that. At least, he vaguely remembered something similar—it had been almost half a year since they had last gone into a dream together. Nevertheless, he woke with his chest full and happy.

As he laid next to Adam in their blanket tent waiting to return to his body, he heard the beginnings of rain patter against the cloth. He guessed it had only been an hour or so.

He nestled into his body with a familiarity, a soft beginning. Then he turned over to his side where Adam still lay with his eyes closed, his fingers dipped in his scrying bowl.

He was a beautiful sleeper. Ronan guessed a dreamer’s companion would have to be. His real Adam was still too thin and his skin too pale, but he looked healthier somehow, even completely iglooed in blankets to the point where Ronan could really only see him from the lips up.

He imagined it was probably hard to leave Lindenmere when it was giving him what he wanted so badly. The trees probably wanted to talk to him, too. Ronan had figured Adam would want to stay a little longer to reacquaint himself with what he had been without for so long.

But Ronan couldn’t wait forever, and Adam needed his evening medicine.

“C’mon, Parrish, time to get inside.” Ronan reached over, gently caressing—

Adam’s cheek was cold.

“Adam.” Ronan leapt up, spilling the bowl of water. He tapped Adam’s cheek repeatedly, then started smacking there. Adam didn’t stir. “Adam, come back. Scrying is over. Back to me now.”

_Lindenmere, give him back._

Maybe if he thought it angrily enough, it would travel through the ley line and Lindenmere would do as it was told. In the meantime, he pulled out his talon knife, closing his eyes as he sliced a clean mark into Adam’s forearm.

The wound opened, but no blood came out.

_Wake up. Wake up._

He had to still be dreaming.

The trees worried around the blanket tent, rustling and whispering. Ronan threw the knife to the side.

“Adam?” He gave him a shove. “Adam!”

Adam didn’t shift, he just laid there peacefully, a small smile on his lips. Ronan turned him to his back, resting his ear against Adam’s chest.

Silence.

A wet, cold kind.

Wind hissed through the trees. Grass bowed. He couldn’t see them, but Ronan felt Lindenmere’s flowers retreat into their buds, the insects scurry for home, the deer head for shadow.

“Adam,” Ronan begged. “Baby, wake up.”

Tears leaked hot from his cheeks, and his throat began to close. His body knew what his brain was not accepting. His body had felt it many times, his eyes had seen it. His fingers had touched cold skin before.

Ronan pulled Adam’s impossibly light body up into his arms, cradling him. Adam’s head lolled back, his tiny wrists dangled, grass twining around his fingers.

A scream broke from Ronan’s throat and the wind sheared the blanket from its flimsy clothesline foundation. They ley line was surging, but he couldn’t tell if it was helping or taking away from him.

The trees shuddered, and when Ronan looked down he saw the grass weaving itself over Adam’s hands, the moss creeping up over his shoes, claiming him. Taking him.

_He felt no pain,_ the trees said. _He told us, Greywaren._

A broken sound leaked from Ronan’s lips. He was _recovering_. The cancer was gone. _They_ were recovering—everything was going to be all right.

“He said he could do it,” Ronan sobbed. Guilt was a knife slipped between his ribs, slicing away at healthy sinew he’d made so strong over the past year.

_He chose to go,_ the trees said. _He asked us. Would you like to feel what he felt, Greywaren?”_

He heard a distant scream, high-pitched and full of raw anguish only a child could muster. Opal.

“Show me,” Ronan hissed, tucking Adam’s cold face against his chest. “Fucking show me.”

He lurched as something grabbed his insides and twisted them so tight they almost popped open inside of him. His moth tasted of rot, his whole body boiled and froze all at once. Feeling left him, all feeling—everything within him became solely focused on the gutting pain—a pain acute, throbbing relentless. It was everywhere. He could feel it in each blood cell, organ, nerve. Worse than Hell, worse than anything he had ever experienced before.

_It was what he felt._

“Oh god.” Ronan let out a noise of despair, doubling over Adam’s body. “Why didn’t you tell me? Parrish, why didn’t you tell me?”

_He told us, Greywaren. He felt no pain_ _when he left this body._

“It doesn’t matter if he felt no pain!” Ronan screamed. “He’s dead! He’s fucking dead!”

_He was happy. He still is, happy._

Ronan thought of the way Adam’s lips tasted like sunshine, the way he had laughed into his mouth when Ronan held him as close as he possibly could. When did he die? When did Adam go away and the copy take his place?

The moss lapped at Ronan’s arms as it swallowed Adam bit by bit.

He stood, tugging insistently until the growth reluctantly unwound from Adam’s limbs. Opal burst from the screen door. She caught sight of him and flung herself to the earth in grief.

“Make me a headstone,” Ronan hissed at Lindenmere.

He had fallen to his knees again without realizing it. He smoothed Adam’s hair away from his face. Adam’s fingers had already started to turn blue. “One that goes so deep into the ground it fucking comes out the other side of the goddamn earth.”

Opal finally made it to him and clung to his shirt as she sobbed.

_He loves you,_ said the trees.

Ronan pulled Adam higher against his chest and gave himself to grief.

* * *

Adam stared at the blanket were Ronan had just been moments before. Lindenmere without its dreamer was a terrifying place, but not this time. This time Lindenmere had invited him by name, and he knew why. He’d known since his birthday party, when Noah had been singing to him with the others, watching him with a quiet, knowing smile. He’d known it when he dreamed of the Gansey who only laughed, when he started being aware of pain he couldn’t feel when Ronan touched him.

“It isn’t so bad,” Noah said, suddenly there at the edge of the blanket.

He did look older. He held the paper raven in his hands, the one Adam had seen in his dream.

“Your sister,” Adam said with a realization. “She was the one holding that.”

Noah smiled, flexing the raven’s wings. “Yes. Adele always stayed awake waiting for me to come back from swim practice.”

Adam remembered the smell of chlorine in the bathroom right before he’d passed out.

“Were you trying to take me then?” he asked.

“In the bathroom?” Noah cocked his head. “I’m not trying to take you anywhere. I wasn’t then, either. I’m offering a different path. “

“I won’t haunt him,” Adam said, a cavern opening in his chest. Dying was uncomfortable.

Noah smiled down at the raven. “That’s not so bad either. Until the end.”

Adam looked away out of guilt.

“This place loves you, and it loves Ronan. That’s the only reason I’m here, the only reason you’re here. You could be gone already.”

“Gone where?”

Noah’s eyes changed color. Or maybe they had always been…that color. Adam didn’t have a name for it. “I can’t tell you that unless you go there. I don’t even know.” He shrugged. “I gave my life twice to save Gansey. I chose to stay in…I guess it’s Purgatory or something. I chose to stay until he passes on, so he won’t be afraid.”

Adam realized then that he was afraid too. He didn’t know how to live a life that wasn’t in the world. Noah didn’t have to explain it to him that if he chose to stay with Ronan as a spirit he wouldn’t last very long. He would decay as Noah had.

“It isn’t like dreaming,” Noah said. “You can only go certain places. I can go to my sisters’ bedroom, where I took you. You can come here, and probably some other places. But time doesn’t work the same outside of Lindenmere. If you go to The Barns, you’d see everything and nothing. You might see Ronan as a baby, you might see him die. You might see him marry someone else.”

Adam couldn’t stomach that, even if he’d asked Ronan to move on without him if he passed.

“I still have time to go back,” Adam said. He could feel that he hadn’t left himself yet.

Noah nodded. “That’s true. But I might not be able to catch you next time. You won’t have a choice but to leave.”

“It feels like—” Adam flinched as a wound opened up on his arm.

_Ronan._

Noah extended his hand. “It’s better if you come with me. For him and for you.”

Adam closed his eyes. For a brief moment he could see the shadow of Ronan in front of him. He smelled rain, heard his name shouted over and over.

_I love you._

He opened his eyes and took Noah’s hand, closing his ears to the screams in the world he was leaving behind.


	20. Chapter 20

Robert J. Parrish, age 38, passed into Heaven on July 8th. Survived by his loving wife of twenty years, Susan M. Parrish, his brother Greg, his sister Mary Jo, and his son Adam. He enjoyed visiting with neighbors and acting as the community handyman. He worked hard for his family, saving money to send his son to Agloinby Academy and Harvard University, where Adam just finished his freshman year. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to the fundraising account listed on the Bolinger Funeral Home website to aid in funding Adam’s college expenses. Above all, Robert valued education for his family.

Private services entrusted to Bolinger Funeral Home, St. Agnes Church. For more information, please visit the Bolinger Funeral Home website.

* * *

October arrived golden and sweet with honeycrisp. The mountains smoked blue in the mornings and the birds sang their goodbyes as they headed off south. The Barns withstood the changing seasons as it always had, with worn wood and peeling paint. Opal scuffed the floors with her hooves as she raced through the hallways during games of hide and seek, and Chainsaw cawed happily in the trees.

The BMW racked up miles, the fridge remained stocked, the mail was taken each day from the mailbox.

To the outside world, nothing had changed for Ronan Lynch.

Each day started with feeding the animals, each evening ended with his head on his pillow, surrounded by aching silence until he closed his eyes.

In fact, the only changes were that the boy he loved was dead, and that he wore a small black band around his ring finger on his left hand.

The Saturday before Halloween, he woke up and attended his best friend’s wedding. Alone. His fears of being slighted by a disappointed Gansey family didn’t come true—the reality was far worse. They pitied him. They pressed comforting touches to his shoulders and gave their condolences. No one asked why they hadn’t been invited to a funeral, because none of them would have attended by choice anyway. Gansey and Blue had planted memorial flowers and ivy in front of their quaint little Henrietta home. Blue even made a little plaque that simply read: _for our magician_.

Ronan couldn’t look at it when he visited. Which he did, every Wednesday, for dinner. In his phone calendar it was simply written in as SUICIDE WATCH.

He stood with Henry Cheng and Mr. Gray as the best man, and fought not to cry or vomit or turn around and punch Mr. Gray in the goddamn face. The only reason he kept still was because of a derelict folding chair in place behind him that had a groomsman’s tie neatly folded beside a boutonniere of baby’s breath and forget me nots. For Adam.

He watched Blue walk down the aisle in a wedding dress that looked like it had been stolen from a grave, but not in a bad way. It had draping, embroidered tulle and was matched with an obnoxious veil that dragged leaves as she walked arm and arm with Calla.

He watched Gansey’s reaction upon seeing her, the tears that sprang to his eyes and the way he covered his mouth in fantastical joy.

It opened a chasm in him, pitch black and unending.

He watched the ceremony, watched as Gansey kissed Blue and remembered when that had taken Gansey away from them just a few years before. How the same cruel fate had taken Adam but hadn’t given him back.

He forced his lips to twist to something like a smile for endless photos, though he took a very long time in the bathroom after holding Adam’s tie and flowers for the groomsmen pictures.

Everyone else at the wedding was happy. Maura danced with her daughter, then with Gansey. Mrs. Gansey made a speech, then Helen. No one asked why Ronan didn’t say anything as best man.

After the reception, he drove home alone. He cried in the driveway so Opal didn’t see.

The next morning, he drove to Lindenmere where the Pig sat waiting for him, Gansey and Blue in their wedding attire, Ronan’s eyes no longer quite so red.

He led them through the field and into the forest. When Lindenmere greeted him, he didn’t reply.

Once they were far enough inside, the trees changed to a reflecting pool in an instant. At the end, a wall of shale with a moss-covered enclave, dreamlights and white petals floating in the air around them.

“Ronan, it’s beautiful,” Blue whispered. Her dress fanned out on the surface of the water, and none of their feet sank below the surface as they walked.

White stags and ravens made up this batch of wedding guests, and they bowed to the Raven King. Ronan kept his gaze on the enclave, waiting.

“Did you bring their stuff?” he asked Gansey.

“Of course,” Gansey replied.

“Blue!”

The three of them looked up at the voice as Noah appeared in the enclave and came running toward them.

“Noah!” Blue wrapped her arms around his neck and Noah lifted her easily, swirling her around like they were in a goddamn mystical wedding photoshoot. Gansey huddled as near as he dared until Blue was safely on the ground, then wrapped Noah up in a hug of his own.

“I had to do a lot of convincing to get him to show up.”

The voice in his ear was a needle blade that speared him right where he had yet to heal.

Adam’s arms came around him, warm and sure and real. It made Ronan feel sick.

“Hey,” he greeted weakly, because this wasn’t a copy he’d dreamed up. It was the real Adam, the soul that had locked itself in another place he could only visit here. And he did, every day between feeding the animals and eating his meals. And every day he felt more empty, more aching than he had the day before.

Adam’s chin rested on his shoulder. “How was the wedding?”

“You weren’t there,” Ronan said by way of an answer.

“I’m here now.” Adam kissed the nape of his neck. “And I’ll always be here.”

Ronan slipped from Adam’s hold when Gansey noticed him and came rushing over.

“Adam, you look wonderful,” he greeted, throwing his arms around Adam’s neck.

“And you look like a groom,” Adam said, stepping back to look him over.

Ronan’s dream ring flashed on Adam’s finger when he gave Blue a hug and showered her dress in compliments. Ronan decided to focus on the scenery. His scenery. The wedding he’d always wanted for them, but would never have. Being engaged was torture enough.

“Hi, Ronan,” Noah greeted warily.

Ronan gave him a nod. “Noah.”

He knew it wasn’t Noah’s fault that Adam had chosen to die that day. But it was hard not to blame him. To make the pain easier to bear.

_He’s not a dream thing,_ Noah had said in the first dream where Adam returned. _He’s like me now._

“Would you help me pin this on?” Noah asked, extending his boutonniere.

Ronan took it from his hands and stepped closer to find the right spot on the lapel of Noah’s suit.

_Greywaren._

“You never should have interfered,” Ronan whispered so quietly he wasn’t even sure he’d made a sound at all.

Noah gently gripped his wrist and Ronan had half a mind to slug him. “I had to. To save both of you.”

Ronan let out a snort as he pinned the flowers in place. “I don’t feel saved, Czerny.”

“So said the mouse led from the cheese, Lynch,” Noah replied in a voice too old for him.

“No one ever asked if I wanted the cheese anyway,” he hissed, then he pulled away.

Adam stood there in his suit and tie, looking as staggeringly handsome as possible in the soft light filtering down from the canopy above. Yet when Ronan saw him, all he could think about was the Adam curled up in a hospital bed, holding his hand during chemo and trying not to shake. He thought of helping that Adam swallow his pills, of reading Goodnight Moon.

“Ronan,” Noah warned. “Take it away.”

Behind Adam was the corpse of his real body as Ronan remembered it: bone white and skeletal, wearing one of his sweatshirts.

“Lindenmere,” he said, and the corpse was gone.

If Adam noticed it, he didn’t say anything as he walked over and framed Ronan’s face in his hands.

“I love you.”

Adam kissed him and Ronan closed his eyes, fighting the urge to refuse it. The more Ronan sank into despair, the more Adam wanted to see him each time he visited. The more Adam seemed to love him.

“I love you too,” Ronan said.

_Hear us, Greywaren._

“Should we do this?” he asked, stepping back a little from Adam. “You guys are supposed to be honeymooning or some shit, right?”

Blue finished tying Noah’s tie and kissed his cheek. “Yeah, yeah, I’m ready.”

Ronan, Adam, and Noah walked up the aisle to the enclave where a stone altar had appeared. Lindenmere had taken over the little ceremony and produced two crowns made of antler tines and raven feathers, dotted with forget me nots that bloomed from the bone.

“You want to talk after this?” Adam asked as he laced their fingers together.

Ronan shook his head. He never wanted to talk. Only Adam ever wanted to talk.

Adam frowned, but it was short-lived as Gansey walked up the aisle arm and arm with Blue. Petals showered them, resting in Gansey’s hair and in Blue’s veil. Ronan thought of apple cider from his orchard, of curling up on the couch with Adam to watch him watch Jeopardy while the autumn embraced them both.

Instead he would go home to an empty farmhouse and wait until the next time he could sneak away here.

A magnificent stag had taken up behind the altar by the time Gansey and Blue had reached it. It looked down at them with black eyes and quiet breaths until Gansey lowered himself to his knees and helped Blue to hers.

_Please, listen._

A swarm of Blue Emperor butterflies swallowed up the crowns, lifting them from the altar and placing them delicately atop Blue’s head first, then Gansey’s. The stags and ravens in the crowd bowed their heads, and the birds and insects stopped singing.

Adam squeezed his hand. Ronan flinched.

The stag’s maw formed into a white raven’s beak.

“King and Queen,” it said.

The forest burst to life again, and sunlight streaked through the trees in two glorious beams that lit the crowns like halos. It was so agonizingly beautiful that Ronan was glad he hadn’t thought of it himself. He watched Gansey and Blue kiss—again—and the ravens took flight. Noah grinned as he watched them flock together before dispersing into the trees, the deer gone with them.

The reflecting pool drained to a gurgling brook that made a circle in the center of the clearing where five sycamore stumps sat waiting for them.

He thought about carrying Adam’s body here, about how fast the moss had swallowed it. There hadn’t even been time for Ronan to hold that fragile hand for one last moment, one last cold kiss.

That same fragile hand stuck from the water, folded over like a lily, soft and delicate.

“Ronan,” Adam said.

Ronan took it away.

_i fell can you help me out of the tub it hurts_

Adam’s last text to him had been in early May, the last time he had bathed alone. The last time he was ever alone, really.

He realized he was still standing beside the altar while everyone but Adam had made their way to the seats.

“Would it help if I held you?” Adam asked him softly. He was clearly upset, butthere wasn’t a way to fix it right now.

Ronan shook his head. “Not this time.”

He led Adam to the stumps and sat on the one next to Noah, who was asking Gansey to retell the wedding, to hear who had said or done what.

_Greywaren._

Ronan grit his teeth. _If you can’t make this hurt less, I don’t want to fucking hear it from you,_ he thought in the most venomous way he could think.

Adam put his hand on Ronan’s knee. His ring glimmered there in the soft sunlight, innocent. He’d waited so long—too long now—to give that ring to Adam. He’d hoped he would be proud to see it there, filled with triumph that he, Ronan Lynch, had found love.

Instead, it clung to the finger of something half real half not. A half thing. Adam’s soul in some other body.

Afternoon faded to night and their clearing became something younger and happier. A fire crackled in the middle of their stump circle, then their stumps turned to sleeping bags, though they would not dream here. Stories were shared, and Noah laughed so hard he clutched his belly in joyful agony. Ronan made s’mores, Adam plated them. They ate until their stomachs protested the marshmallows and Gansey let out a quiet sigh of contentment that meant their time in Lindenmere was coming to a close.

“Shall we go?” he asked Blue.

She dolloped marshmallow fluff on his nose and nodded.

They stood in the way people did when something wonderful was ending. Gansey hugged Noah tightly and wiped his tears away while Blue did the same. Noah was gone before they started walking. Wordless, unpredictable as he had always been. Ronan led the group of them, Adam insistent about holding his hand.

When they reached the end of Lindenmere, Gansey turned.

“I wish you could have come to the real wedding, Adam,” he said, embracing him yet again.

“I wish I could have been there too,” Adam replied, patting Gansey’s back. “But I’ll be here whenever you come back.”

“I’m glad you found a place that makes you happy,” Blue said with a smile. Ronan sucked air down his throat and looked away. Was that it? Had he not done enough to make Adam happy?

Gansey took Ronan’s hand and let him along the edge of the forest as Blue spoke quietly to Adam about something Ronan couldn’t hear.

“Don’t tell me you’re gay for me, Dick,” Ronan cracked, squeezing his hand. “You just got married.”

Gansey’s lips twitched, but he didn’t say anything for a long time.

They stood together and stared out at the quiet field beyond Lindenmere, the world where they couldn’t know Noah Czerny and where Adam Parrish was a dead boy whose mother probably had no idea he was dead. The world where Ronan lived in a half reality and Gansey got to have a house, a wife, and a future even though he’d been a dead boy once too.

“It breaks my heart to see you like this,” Gansey finally said into the wind. “I can’t ignore it, though I’ve been trying because you asked me to. God, Lynch. I never wanted it to be this way.”

Ronan had no reply. He simply _hurt_.

“We’re always here for you,” Gansey murmured. “No matter what you decide to do.”

Ronan nodded once, then they returned to Adam and Blue in silence. Adam smiled warmly at him, crossing the distance between them and pulling him in for a hug.

“We’ll have ours someday,” Adam assured him, pressing his lips to Ronan’s neck.

In that moment he could think of nothing worse, and he hated himself for thinking it.

They watched Gansey and Blue depart until Ronan no longer felt them in his forest and Blue’s white dress was no longer visible in the grass. When they were gone, Ronan pulled away from Adam and headed deeper into the trees.

“Are you mad at me?” Adam asked, confused and hurrying to catch up.

Ronan choked out a noise.

“You _are_ mad at me. What the hell did I do?”

Ronan spun around to face him, trembling. “How can you ask that?”

Adam blinked. “What do you mean?”

“I just went to Gansey’s wedding alone,” Ronan said. “Declan refused to come because Gray was there and I had to stand next to him for like thirty fucking minutes and no one cared. Gansey and Blue cared—but not enough to not invite him. And then I had to come here and set all this up for you and Noah and you’re not even you!”

Adam’s brow furrowed, his eyes clouded with concern. “You didn’t tell me any of that about the wedding. And what do you mean I’m not me? I’ve explained this—”

“I buried a body here,” Ronan said shakily. “I loved that Adam and you took him away from me and you didn’t even ask if that’s what I wanted.”

Rain began to fall as the trees mourned in silence.

“That’s what you don’t get, Ronan,” said Adam. “I was dying. The drugs took the physical pain away so I didn’t feel it so much, but I wasn’t going to make it another year. I was falling apart inside.”

Ronan didn’t know how he was supposed to explain it. That this was cheating—cheating death and cheating against the boy he’d carried to bed every night for months.

“I never had a choice,” Ronan said.

Adam’s eyes narrowed slightly. “It wasn’t your life to—”

“ _It was my life!_ ” he screamed. Tears streamed from his eyes, scalding his cheeks. The wind moaned a sorrowful cry—it was the exact sound his heart had been making since he’d buried his soulmate. “It _was_ my life. I was your life since you fell in the bathtub. I gave you meds, helped you eat, took you everywhere you needed to go. Sat still during treatments and held your hand when you cried and read you stories to help you fall asleep.” He stabbed himself in the sternum with a finger. “It was my life. And then you took it from me.”

“Ronan—”

“I’ve heard it all,” Ronan snapped. “But it doesn’t change that you died on your birthday and that’s my fucking fa—my fa—” He stammered, unable to force himself to continue speaking. The pain was simply too great.

Adam reached out, pressing his hands to Ronan’s chest, but he pulled back sharply.

“And you live here the happiest you’ve maybe ever been, and I’m the one fucking dying now,” Ronan continued in a broken voice. He was so numb he didn’t think it would ever be possible to feel anything but hurt for the rest of his miserable life. It tainted his dreams; he brought back nameless things that held no space, paintings with no color, animals with no life.

Adam just stared at him, dappled sunlight dancing over his freckles. It was a sight more ghostly than Noah had ever been, because Noah had never been anything different to them.

“So…do you want me to leave?” Adam asked, and it was his turn to sound broken.

Ronan let out a shuddering noise. He didn’t know if he wanted him to leave, if that would help or rip a new hole in him. Never one to lie, he simply said, “I don’t know.”

Adam nodded. His hands drew together to fiddle with his engagement ring as if he was debating removing it. The sight made Ronan feel sick again, but he couldn’t stop thinking about how the frail, recovering Adam would have cherished that ring so much more. It wasn’t fair.

“You’re right,” Adam said absently, still turning the ring. “I didn’t give you a choice. I was scared, Ronan. Noah said that I might not get the chance to come here if I waited. I wanted to be with you. More than anything, I wanted to be with you.”

Ronan couldn’t move. He didn’t know how to get out of this without being a complete piece of shit.

“Do you want to move on?” Adam asked, his fingers poised around the band.

“I don’t think so,” Ronan replied softly. He wiped his eyes. “But…I think I need time.”

Adam nodded and a tear rolled down his cheek. What a horrible thing, that Ronan only rediscovered some of his deep love for this Adam after hurting him. He reached forward and thumbed the tear away.

“It’s not forever,” Ronan whispered.

Adam chuckled sadly. “But I bet it’s a long time.”

“It’s Lindenmere. Won’t feel long at all.”

He knew someday he would realize how blessed he was to still have the person he loved most still in his life. Someday he would remember the agony of never seeing his father again, how badly he’d wished he could have his hair ruffled one last time, or how much he longed for his mother’s embrace.

“Is there anything I can do?” Adam asked. “I don’t—Why now?”

Ronan’s shoulders hunched. “That goddamn wedding, Adam. I know you want to get married but I can’t. I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to do that. I wanted a life with you—”

“You always said you felt like the real world was a place where you belonged less and less,” Adam protested.

It was true, but that still didn’t change how Ronan felt.

“You were still there though. It was where you belonged.”

Adam flinched. “You know that isn’t true. I’m your magician.”

Ronan rubbed his swollen eyes. “I need time.”

“Do you still love me?”

He choked out a sob. “Of course I fucking love you.”

He would never stop loving Adam Parrish. Ronan had failed in his promise to keep him alive, and he wouldn’t abandon him now.

“Then please don’t leave,” Adam whispered, reaching out to clutch the lapels of his suit.

Ronan rested his forehead against Adam’s and closed his eyes. Tears leaked out, warm and abrasive against his skin. How could he leave now? How could he take time away? Everyone in Adam’s life had abandoned him.

“Just for a little while,” Ronan murmured, thumbing Adam’s cheeks. “I have to, baby. I can’t love you the right way when it’s like this.”

Adam moved away from his hand to bury his face in Ronan’s neck to cry. Ronan hugged him tightly, his heart breaking all over again. It occurred to him that they might not survive this. That Adam might not forgive him for leaving and wouldn’t come back.

“Promise you’ll be here when I’m ready,” Ronan said into Adam’s golden hair. “You can show up to tell me to fuck off if you want, but promise you’ll be there.”

Adam’s arms tightened around him.

“Promise me.”

“I promise,” Adam said weakly.

The rain that had been falling around them finally touched their skin, soaking it in a matter of moments until Adam was shivering against him.

“Lindenmere’s taking me away,” Adam said through chattering teeth.

Ronan lifted his head.

_Stop._

Adam was warm again, and solid. Ronan hadn’t even realized he’d been fading.

He pulled away after a long moment and kissed Adam’s forehead. “I’ll be back soon,” he promised.

Adam nodded quickly, clearly afraid, but letting him go anyway.

“I love you,” Ronan said.

Adam met his eye. “I love you too.”

Their kiss was chaste, then Ronan turned away and hurried toward the edge of the forest before he could change his mind. He knew this was the right thing to do, but it still hurt. Pain tore at him, both grief and heartbreak.

_Greywaren,_ the trees whispered.

Ronan stopped at the edge of Lindenmere and looked up at the leaves. “Take care of him,” he told it. “If you hurt him, I’ll burn you down.”

Robert Parrish’s scream echoed for only a moment, and it rattled through the trees in warning. If Adam decided he wanted to leave, that was his choice, but Ronan wouldn’t allow Lindenmere to do it for him. He had killed a man, and he would kill a part of himself if it meant giving Adam his right to decide. Robert Parrish hadn’t given him that choice, and now he was in the ground.

As Ronan walked back through the field to the BMW the sky darkened. A storm grew around him, but he pressed on, the weight of his guilt now lifted from his shoulders because Adam would be safe in Lindenmere. He would come back soon, as he had promised, and he would love Adam like he used to. But not right now.

He pushed a hundred as he drove back to the Barns, and when he tripped the security system he was overtaken with cold loneliness and the feeling of Adam’s cooling body against his chest. Wind whipped at his face when he got out of the car.

Instead of going to the house, he headed for the mulberry tree where an obelisk of black granite punctured the earth. A white opal inlay read ADAM PARRISH, LOVED UNTIL DEATH. On the other side of the world, at the bottom of the Indian Ocean a thousand miles from the coast of Australia, and identical marker had burst from the sand just as he’d asked it to.

At the tip of this obelisk a tiny sun glowed red as sunset. He’d dreamed it to symbolize Adam’s lost life, and perhaps he should have known he wasn’t completely gone when the sun hadn’t extinguished completely. Spires of mint leaves crowded the base, a gift from Gansey and Blue.

Ronan sat at the grave and rested his head against the cool rock. For a long time he just sat there as the storm picked up around him. _This_ felt like spending time with Adam: sitting in the quiet of his grave, mourning.

A gust of wind threatened worse things to come, and he heard Opal cry for him from the house.

“She still draws you pictures,” he whispered, running his finger along the A in Adam’s name.

He thought back to last summer, when Adam had been nervously packing for college. To when he’d visited Harvard and dreamed murder crabs and a motorcycle that Adam had driven to come see him on his birthday.

“I’m scared!” Opal called into the howling wind, presumably from the back door. “Come inside!”

Ronan sat back and wiped his eyes. Something red caught his vision. A red band caught in the stem of one of the mint plants. He reached out and carefully unsnagged it before bringing it to his lap.

It was the leather bracelet he’d made for Valentine’s Day. The one Adam had been wearing on the day of his death, so iconic on his wrist that Ronan had forgotten it was there.

He closed his fingers around the leather and squeezed tight.

He’d buried Adam with this bracelet on his wrist.

“Thank you,” he said softly. He leaned forward, pressing his lips to the cool stone. It tasted like tears. It had since Adam had been buried. “I’ll keep it safe so I can give it back to you.”

Ronan kept his hand on the grave as he stood, his palm lingering for just one more moment before he headed toward the house.

“I’m coming, you little puke,” he called as he waded through the grass. “Wanna help me tie this? Adam gave it to me.”

Opal’s face lit up and she began to dance around on her hooves. “Yes, yes!”

Ronan secured the back door to keep it from blowing open in the wind and took a seat on the rug in the living room.

“No eating it,” Ronan warned. “It’s special. Got that?”

Opal grinned with a mouth full of fangs. “Yes.”

She took the bracelet in her little fingers and brought it to her nose, drawing a deep inhale. “Adam.”

Ronan smiled. “Yeah.”

He held out his wrist and Opal reluctantly took the bracelet from her nose to tie the band around it. The house was too quiet without Adam, but they were slowly getting used to it. Even the walls seemed to need time to adjust. Opal muttered under her breath as she worked the knot until it was finally tied snug.

“Good job,” he praised when it was finished.

Opal crawled into his lap and snuggled against him. He patted her hair and sat there for awhile, listening to the storm as it lashed against the shutters and thunder rocked the earth.

“I want you to come with me to Lindenmere soon,” Ronan said. “I have a surprise for you.”

Opal hummed in agreement, but she was drifting off to sleep.

Adam Parrish would always be his home, Ronan thought. Adam Parrish would always be his magician, his one love, his everything. Soon he would be back for him, but that would be after hours sitting by his grave. It would be when he had no more tears to give, no more heart to sacrifice, no more energy to mourn. He wouldn’t dream until the nightwash stained his bedsheets and leaked from his ears, and even then he’d wait until there was nothing left.

Lightning flashed in the windows and Ronan caught sight of something off with Adam’s bracelet. He turned his wrist and saw that text had been stamped into the leather in Adam’s script.

_tua anima, cum es parati_

He held Opal a little tighter and placed his hand on the top of her head, curving his neck to rest his lips against the text.

Ronan would burn out his ocean. When it was gone, he would return to his dream forest to fill it new.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks to everyone who's been along for this journey! had a good cry writing this one.
> 
> keep an eye on my tumblr (chubbydino) for some fun stuff coming soon, and feel free to send prompts my way. :)


End file.
